Students inaugurate international film festival

The inaugural Skidmore International Student Film Festival will take place on campus Wednesday through Sunday, April 16 to 20. More than 25 short and feature-length films from around the world, made by students and professionals alike, will be shown. National Geographic film producer Steve Burns and documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki will be guest speakers during the event, which is free and open to the public.

The following is a brief schedule.

• 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall: Spirits of the Rainforest. An Emmy award-winning documentary about the Manu Biosphere Reserve in Peru. 90 minutes. Produced by guest speaker Steve Burns.
  
  
• 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, Davis Auditorium: Why We Fight. A documentary film about the American military-industrial complex. Won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. 99 minutes. Directed by guest speaker Eugene Jarecki. Watch the trailer.
  
  
• 5 p.m. Thursday, April 17, Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall: Expedition: Bismarck. Directed by James Cameron, this Emmy award-winning documentary follows an underwater expedition to the German battleship Bismarck. 92 minutes. Produced by guest speaker Steve Burns. Click here for details.
  
  
• 6 p.m. Sunday, April 20, Gannett Auditorium: Why We Fight. (See April 16 listing)
  

	Steve Burns		Eugene Jarecki

Steve Burns will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 17, in Gannett Auditorium. A veteran of three decades in the media world, Burns spent 11 years as a producer and cinematographer, then was a supervising producer with National Geographic Television. During that time he produced segments of the Emmy Award-winning series Explorer. Most recently, he served as executive vice president and chief science editor at Discovery Networks, responsible for Discovery Channel Quest, a series of expedition specials. Burns will speak about his upcoming projects during his Skidmore visit.

Eugene Jarecki will speak at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 20, in Gannett Auditorium. According to Variety, Jarecki combines the skills of journalist and poet and ?joins the top ranks of non-fiction filmmakers with Why We Fight, a thoroughgoing and affecting film on the nature and causes of the American military-industrial complex.?

Why We Fight was released theatrically in 2006 by Sony Pictures Classics and was recently released on DVD. It has been broadcast in over 20 countries and won the Adolf Grimme Prize, Germany?s highest television honor.

In 2001, Jarecki wrote and directed his first dramatic feature, The Opponent, distributed by Lions Gate Films.

In addition to his work in film, Jarecki is a visiting senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, and is the founder and executive director of the Eisenhower Project, an academic public policy group dedicated in the spirit of Dwight D. Eisenhower to studying the forces that shape American foreign policy.

For a lineup of the short films to be presented at the festival, click here.