The Monarch Short Film Festival took place on Feb. 28, 2025. People gathered in the University Theatre to watch the screenings of all short films accepted into the festival, then watched the award ceremony to find out which films would win the six awards offered by the festival.
Seven student films were screened at the festival: “Turn the Light On,” “New Energy: The Story of NEON,” “Overnight Success,” “So Honored,” “The Observed,” “Velvet Shed,” and “Starved.” Of these, two are documentaries, one is an animated short, and the last four are short fiction films, respectively. Audiences also got to see two alumni films: “Phillips: Lover of Horses” and “Nhu Dawn.” Two films by the ODU student film club were shown: “Brief Encounter” and “Lambert.” Finally, audiences were treated to “Shroom Soup,” a film directed by a faculty member and produced by the Advanced Filmmaking class from the previous semester.
In addition to the films being created by ODU film students, many other movies featured ODU students as actors. One of the film club’s pieces featured Tahji McCombs and Caitlyn Wells, two ODU students and amateur actors. “So Honored” starred Kenzie Moyers as the beleaguered maid of honor struggling to make a wedding go off without a hitch.
During the intermission in between the student films and the alumni films, Tim Hackman, ODU’s Dean of Libraries, took time to speak to the audience about the Naro Collection, a massive physical collection of films on DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and VHS tapes. In this digital age, it is more important than ever to preserve physical media, and the Naro Collection is among one of the largest collections on the East Coast.
Jacob Young and Mark Rosado, representatives from Next Generation Storytellers also attended the event, giving praise to the student films and highlighting how much talent they witnessed.
Of the six awards, “New Energy: The Story of NEON” won Best Short-Documentary, “Overnight Success” won Best Short-Animation, and “Starved” won Best Short-Fiction.
“Starved,” which tells the story of a young, homeless boy befriending a lonely fisherman, also won Best Student film overall, while “Velvet Shed,” a throw-back to old-school, pulpy horror movies, won Audience Favorite, for which audience members cast their vote during the intermission.
The 2025 Monarch Short Film Festival opened submissions back in October 2024, and any film completed by an ODU student in the timeframe of Jan. 20, 2024 and Feb. 2, 2025 was eligible for submission. Submissions closed on Feb. 2.
This festival is a competitive one. All submissions were reviewed by a jury composed of the followingODU film professors: David Mallin, Priya Vashist, Najmeh Moradiyan-Rizi, Deborah Wallace, Diane Fine, and Katie Lange. They assigned the films points on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the best and one the worst. The highest scoring films were screened to the audience on Feb. 28.
Run by Carolina Conte, the Monarch Short Film Festival is a relatively new event at ODU, occurring annually since 2023. It evolved from a simple film showcase that would be held at the end of semesters, which was difficult to put together due to how hectic the period immediately preceding finals week was.
“I still wanted to highlight the students’ work,” said Conte. “So I thought having a date in the school year that could be more organized and have students submit films, you know, we could still do that.”
Conte also stated that the department wanted to provide the film students with a professional experience of submitting their films to a legitimate festival. The Monarch Short Film Festival even uses FilmFreeway, the same website used by most other festivals, as the place for students to upload their work.
“What we wanted to do with this particular process—to [use] the platform that we’re using, like FilmFreeway, is get the students to have practice go[ing] through the motions of the professional film festival submission […] so that they can have that professional experience,” said Conte.
Even though the festival takes place in February, Conte starts organizing it as early as the summer before, from renewing the department’s access to FilmFreeway to contacting the marketing team to the logistics of reserving a space for the event.
Conte stated that the film department plans on holding the Monarch Short Film Festival annually, as it has been a successful event that draws people in to see the film students’ hard work.
“We had over 120 [attendees] this year, so we’re growing,” said Conte.
It’s evident that the Monarch Short Film Festival is indeed becoming a part of ODU culture. It takes place in the middle of the spring semester, as opposed to the end of a semester. Audience admission is also free, so it serves as a wonderful opportunity for students to take some time to relax and watch some entertaining films made by their peers. Preparations for next year’s festival will be underway soon, so ODU students can look forward to the fourth edition of the Monarch Film Festival in February 2026.
