The 2023 Insomnia Film Festival: Fun for all Geneseo folk!
As a school without an art department or film major, creative cinematic opportunities for Geneseo students are sometimes hard to come by. Luckily, the Insomnia Film Festival is an annual tradition that film minors, actors, writers, and overall movie buffs can look forward to as a chance to engage with the Geneseo community innovatively and originally.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film festival experienced a hiatus from 2019 to 2023; thus, for students like Hannah Lustyik, a senior English creative writing major, the opportunity to participate in the festival has been long-awaited.
“I’ve never done Insomnia [Film] Fest before—I always wanted to when I was a freshman,” Lustyik said. “There are moments where you’re thinking, ‘Yes, we’re so back,’ and then five minutes pass, and you’re like, ‘It’s over—we’re never getting this done, we’re never gonna edit it in time.’ And then five more minutes pass, and you’re like, ‘This is a really good idea and I’m so excited.’ And by the end of it, I was like, ‘I’m really excited to show people my film.’”
Lustyik’s group, Women of Film (including junior English education major Maddie Tavernier and junior biochemistry major Kathleen Lewis), won second place for their film, “Yup, This Is It.” Lustyik’s group took a humorous approach to the festival’s rather loose prompt of 20 “elements” to consider including in a submission.
“We wanted to have a lot of fun with it, because we only had three minutes, so we were like, ‘Let’s do something kind of funny,’” said Lustyik. “You could literally make anything…and people will be hyping you up and clapping for you…and that’s what makes it all worth it.”
Lustyik continued, glibly, “Everyone wants to be praised by their peers [because] we’re all followers and sheep.”
The first-place film, “Stay Weird,” produced by the group Wyo (comprised of junior finance major Camryn Marshall, The Lamron’s assistant business manager, as well as junior communications majors and Lamron co-sports editors Nathan Hubbard and Dylan Dariano, with a special shoutout to senior history major Heather Matela) took a much more serious approach to the same set of elements. A short thriller sequence, the film featured fake blood and washed-out lighting, mimicking the style of many popular horror films.
“I would love to say that our movie had a deeper meaning and pushes for social change—it does not,” said Hubbard. Dariano interjected, “No, there is—don’t kill people. Just stop doing that.”
Dariano and Hubbard went into the festival with no film or editing experience, but cited the guidance of Senior Instructional Designer and coordinator of the festival Joe Dolce as a helpful tool in overcoming this hurdle:
“[Dolce] was so excited for it, and that made it better for everyone,” said Hubbard. In fact, both participants spoke extensively about how the Geneseo community influenced their involvement in the festival.
Humorously, Hubbard explained, “We weren’t going to do it at all, but we were in [Associate Professor and Chair of Communication] Dr. [Andrew] Herman’s class and he mentioned ‘free t-shirt,’ and that’s when we kind of realized that we [had] to do this because we need a free shirt.”
Dariano went on to comment on the community that formed in the process of the festival, as well: “I met a bunch of people doing it,” Dariano said. “We were all kind of like, supporting each other and looking at each other’s things while we were doing it in the lab that night.”
These participants shared the benefits that they believe the festival offers to the Geneseo community as well. Lustyik went on to advocate for the importance of artistic opportunities like the Insomnia Film Festival at Geneseo.
“We have a really limited film program—it’s only a minor, it’s not a major,” Lustyik said. “We don’t really have a lot of opportunities—we have a video production class, we have a screenwriting class, but, you know, there [are] only so many chances [where] you can take those classes, so I think it’s really important. It’s open to amateurs [and] it’s open to people who have a lot of experience. It’s really for everyone—everyone gets to take part in this film festival, and I think that’s what’s really important because it kind of, like, unites the campus community creatively, which we need more of.”
Make sure to keep an eye out for upcoming information about next year’s Insomnia Film Festival—who knows, you might even walk away with a free t-shirt.