On Campus News

Festival Director Morgan Elyse Christensen talks about student run film festival Paris of the Plains

By Naomi Laeuchli
posted Jan 17, 2013, 14:38

Morgan Elyse Christensen, a student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, talks about the student film festival Paris of the Plains, which she and three other students began back in 2012 and the work and planning that goes into it. She reveals where the idea first began and where she hopes it will take both the festival and the city of Kansas.


Who is involved in the festival? How did it begin? And what originally inspired it?
The main people involved in the festival at the moment are Tim English, Britt Melugin, Josh Hall, and myself. It began back in March 2012 when one of my film professors at UMKC, Caitlin Horsmon, was giving us information on how to submit our films to festivals. She mentioned that it was a ton of work but if any of us were interested in trying to start a film festival she would help us. I felt like it was wonderful opportunity for me and could really be something great for the community. So I started recruiting classmates just as we'll all be doing again once classes start this semester. Tim, Brit, and Josh were so enthusiastic and have turned out to be the most helpful people any team could ask for!

What is involved in organizing the festival?
There is SO much involved in organizing a festival, it's hard for just the four of us to keep up sometimes. We've held multiple screenings in preparation for our Paris of the Plains festival in June - we participated in a late-night, outdoor, world-wide screening in July of last year, we had our "Terror on the Plains" horror showcase in October, and we will be collaborating on a women in film showcase in March for Women's History Month. There are venues, vendors, and sponsors to work out for every event as well as guest filmmakers and judges to try and convince to appear at a festival's first year. We try to get out and meet local business owners and involve ourselves with community organizations as often as we can. We spent two days this week just going door-to-door introducing ourselves and our festival. There are also matters of advertisement, promotion, social networking, maintaining a website, and tons of paperwork like sponsorship proposals and applications. We've taken time out for professional development as well; Britt and I attended the International Film Festival Summit in Austin, TX this past December. At the moment, our free time = fest time and we are enjoying every minute of it!

Can you tell me some of your plans for the Paris of the Plains International Film Festival and your vision for it?
With Paris of the Plains, we wanted to offer a platform for student filmmakers from which they can gain industry experience without as many pressures and for a lower cost than some of the larger film festivals. It's going to be a place (which happens to be right in the middle of our country) where our younger generation of filmmakers can learn from each other as well as industry professionals. Sometimes the film business can be very discouraging and we want to inspire students to never give up on their dreams. We'll have labs on subjects you don't often see in the curriculum of a university's film program such as how to work best with your film's talent and how to get the most funding for your film. Most importantly, we want our film festival to bring together filmmakers from all over the world. We want people from all walks of life to gather in one general location as we use the common ground of film and filmmaking to promote peace in diversity. We want Kansas City to experience an increase in multiculturalism as much as we want people to experience Kansas City.

What do you hope will be the future of the festival?
There aren't many student film festivals in the world; most just have a single category reserved for student films. I hope that this might help Paris of the Plains gain recognition and support over the years as people begin to see the positive things we're doing. I also hope that our festival will draw attention from out-of-state filmmakers and perhaps they'll decide to make their next feature here and utilize the skilled and talented men and women who are the foundation of our film community. Kansas City natives have proven time and again that they have what it takes to make it in the film industry but all too often are moving to NY or L.A. because that's where the business is booming. Well, PoPFilmKC wants the business to boom right here. We want our film community to flourish again like it did in the mid 20th century.





Resources:

Paris of the Plains