Narrowed down from over 120 submissions from 30 countries around the world, the University of Idaho College of Natural Resources (CNR) Fish and Wildlife Film Festival showcases short films designed to bring the great outdoors and the excitement of wildlife science to a theater setting.
The film festival’s winner reel was first shown in 2017, and will be displayed again at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Borah Theater of the Bruce Pitman Center. The screening is free and open to the public.
“We know that a lot of students missed it when we did it the first time, so we wanted to do it again on campus,” said Lisette Waits, film festival committee co-chair. Waits, the head of the UI Fish and Wildlife Department, started the festival with her colleague Sophie Gilbert to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Fish and Wildlife Department.
“The idea started because of our 75th anniversary and trying to think of new and unique ways to celebrate it,” Waits said. “The other thing we were thinking about trying to accomplish is to share how amazing fish and wildlife research is.”
Waits and the festival committee seemed to be up to the task of getting the public excited about fish and wildlife science, as the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center was completely filled for the festival’s premiere. The next goal, according to Waits, is enticing more UI students to submit their films.
Grayson Hughbanks
“We didn’t have any graduate students or undergraduate students at the U of I the first time through, though we did get local K-12 kids,” Waits said.
Moscow K-12 students took first and second place in the awards category for their age group.
“We wanted to have that K-12 category to involve local schools,” Waits said. “It was really great to have them be able to come see their film on the big screen.”
The festival’s films are categorized as either “science and research” or “wildlife-human connections,” with a third, “anything-goes” category called “wild side” that gave filmmakers the chance to show their sense of humor in their pieces.
“It’s educational, it’s inspirational and it’s funny,” Waits said. “There’s just a little bit of everything in the festival.”
Ian Smith, a graduate student in Fish and Wildlife Sciences, said the film festival has something that “appeals to most Idahoans.”
“We all enjoy the outdoors to some extent,” Smith said. “(The film festival) is really for kids at young ages all the way up to older adults.”
Smith will be conducting field research this summer and said he will be keeping the film festival in mind.
“I have no experience in (filmmaking), but it would be fun,” Smith said.
Smith will be volunteering at the film festival’s second showing, and said he will help answer questions for anyone interested in submitting a film in the coming year.
In addition to reaching out to students in the Fish and Wildlife Department, Waits is reaching out to journalism and film students.
“That’s part of the goal of doing it on campus and making it free,” Waits said.
The film festival is not exclusively for CNR students and faculty, and with the campus showing, Waits hopes students from all fields of study will come enjoy the “amazing wildlife footage.”
The UI Fish and Wildlife film festival stands out among others of its kind as an education-driven event.
“There are not that many fish and wildlife film festivals that at least in some category focus on the science and try to share the amazing nature of the science,” Waits said. “Other film festivals are more about being linked with a beautiful place … but our film festival was set up to have this educational component and really highlight and honor films that teach us about the amazing science that people are doing.”
With films ranging from two to 10 minutes in length, the festival is able to capture a wide variety of scientific and natural themes.
“The science behind it and the way that people share their passion about the research that they’re working on gets you really interested in it,” Waits said. “There’s really something in the festival for everyone.”
Beth Hoots can be reached at [email protected]