On April 20, Asbury University students are invited to attend Lowbridge. Completely student-run, the event is put on each year to screen films that were not accepted into the Highbridge Film Festival.
Junior Kayden Purvis, one of this year’s organizers, described it as a “fun and lighthearted way to celebrate the hard work put into the films that did not make it into Highbridge.”
The event has been taking place for as long as Purvis has been attending Asbury, and she is keeping the tradition alive alongside seniors Ian Wang and Carmen Clemente.
This year, Purvis was in charge of writing the proposal to get Asbury’s Executive Cabinet to fund the event, planning the date and time and organizing the films that were submitted. Wang is running the social media accounts and designing the posters, while Clemente is making a “senior Media Comm. student tribute video.”
“The goal of Lowbridge is to celebrate and gather to watch all the films made by media comm students this year,” said Purvis. “It’s awesome to have a space to screen a film for the first time and have everyone watch it together… Often, films don’t get into Highbridge not because they aren’t good but because of content, length, time restraints or having alumni and grads work on them.”
Purvis explained that film submissions are open to anyone, not just Media Comm. majors.
“Anyone can submit one film to Lowbridge as long as it hasn’t been screened at Lowbridge or Highbridge in the past. I’ve had random bio majors come up to me and tell me they are going to submit a film they made, and I hope they’re serious. That would be so funny for us,” said Purvis.
While Lowbridge is marketed as a joke, the goal of the event runs deeper than that.
“The core of it is to gather, have fun, and celebrate each other’s accomplishments outside of a Highbridge context… Our motivation for planning Lowbridge is to celebrate students’ hard work on their projects and to have a space to let them show it off. The work required to make a film is insane, and so often, it can be heartbreaking not to have it make it into Highbridge, so Lowbridge is the perfect solution. Plus, there will be candy and snacks during the films, and last I checked, Highbridge doesn’t do that,” joked Purvis.
The Lowbridge Film Festival will take place in the Miller Screening Room at 9 p.m. on Saturday, April 20.