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ZotFest is an annual student film festival hosted by FADA (Film Arts Drama Alliance), a campus club at the University of California, Irvine. The festival is held every year during Spring Quarter, and it's the oldest student-run and student-led film festival in the University of California system. This year it marks ZotFest's 27th year, and the theme is World Cinema. The club invites UCI students to make and submit independent films. Then they showcase the talent during the film festival.
Selection process
This year, FADA got a record number of submissions, hitting 31 films submitted. That's four hours and 30 minutes of footage in short films. The students are required to submit their films through Film Freeway, the platform where most film festivals request their submissions. FADA has a few requirements for the films that get submitted: They have to be under 15 minutes. They have to be made in the last academic year. No use of AI is permitted. Other languages are welcome, but subtitles are required.
They do a screening process, and only a few films qualify to be screened. From those who get screened, some are nominated for awards. It's a very quick process; it all happens two weeks before the festival to accommodate last minute student applications as much as possible.
The vetting process for the films that would be screened at the festival was the job of the programming team. Yuktha Yalamanchili, board member and director of ZotFest, shared her experience being in charge of the selection process. She enjoys having control and flexibility over what the selection process looks like, but the fact that she has power over which films make it, and which don't, scares her.
The programming team had a watch party where they screened every single one of the films and graded them based on a rubric using an Excel spreadsheet. The criteria on the sheet included originality, creativity, directing, writing, cinematography, performances, editing, sound design, and production design.
"I think in film, you are required to be courageous twice. The first time is when you think of creating something, and the second time is when you put your creation out for the world to see. Our student body is creating something and they are being brave about their ideas. I think because we're so aware of that at FADA, we try to handle that [vetting process] as delicately as we possibly can."
Behind-the-scenes preparations for the Big Day
Even though the ZotFest is held at the end of the academic year, the process starts much earlier. As soon as FADA's board is announced at the beginning of the academic year, everyone has to get acquainted and start working on the club's events.
The first steps to organizing the festival are figuring out the club's finances and setting a budget. They have to discuss how much funding the previous board left behind and prepare fundraisers throughout the year.
Some of the organizational decisions for the festival included: where to hold the festival, what the decorations would look like, what environment they wanted the event to have, and what food they wanted to serve. After that, the club had to reach out to vendors and different campus clubs they wanted to collaborate with to make sure that they were putting themselves out there as much as possible. Yuktha shared:
"I would say the biggest challenge for this year's board was trying to reacquaint ourselves with campus through collaboration. FADA used to have a lot more engagement before the pandemic. Our biggest goal this year was to make sure that the film festival is made known through collaborations."
Organizing a festival is not all easy. The club has to face several bureaucratic processes at UCI. FADA has to file some paperwork with ASUCI, the student government, and the Student Events Center to make them aware that the ceremony is happening on campus. These organizations are responsible for sharing necessary information with Fire Safety and filing the permits necessary to hold food and performances at student events. Yuktha expresses that this work is not only tedious but also hard because they find themselves having to convince external people of the importance of the event.
"Everyone is putting their heart and soul into the festival, and we have to convey all of the love we have towards this event to somebody who is completely detached from it."
All of the money that is put towards the festival is money that FADA has raised throughout the academic year. This year FADA held a record number of fundraising efforts, organizing 12 fundraisers this year. Seven of them on Ring Road at the UCI campus and 5 in collaboration with businesses at UTC, the mall in front of the UCI campus. Samantha Hua, director of the Finance & Fundraising department had this to say:
"I knew coming in as the Director of Finance that I wanted to be different than any of the previous boards because I knew that fundraising wasn't pushed enough with the club."
FADA also tries to apply for grants on campus. The process to get a grant is very arduous as they have to detail everything that will be purchased with the requested money, as well as share the amount of money the club has raised.
Yuktha: "One of my biggest grievances with the system that we have on campus is that there isn't really a lot of money going towards the arts, and with the new budget cuts that we have because of the current administration, there's even less money being given to Humanities and the Film and Media Studies department."
The week before the ceremony is the most hectic, because there are a lot of logistical meetings and errands to run. During the day of the festival, everything is set up by the club members themselves; it's them putting up decorations and bringing the food. The video interns work to make sure that there are no technical difficulties during the show. Every member works hard to make sure everything goes smoothly.
ZotFest Screenings, Nominations and Winners
The 27th edition of ZotFest was held on May 22nd at Crystal Cove Auditorium. A total of 13 films were screened during the festival. After intermission, the filmmakers were brought on stage with their teams for a Q&A session. It was a very wholesome environment, and the audience asked questions to learn all of the interesting details of the filmmaking process.
Here's the list of films chosen for screening:
- Dreamboy by Caden Kim. Genre: Experimental, Horror.
- After the Thrill is Gone by Olivia Clark. Genre: Comedy, Drama.
- Les Trois Vus by Booker Caitlin. Genre: Experimental.
- Flightless by Michael Ngyuen. Genre: Horror.
- The Bottom of the Bowl by Cash Goehring & Gavin Gladden. Genre: Thriller, Experimental.
- VAE Movement by Hassan Varela. Genre: Documentary.
- Where Is My Apple? by Tsz Ling Chan. Genre: Dystopian.
- Matthew versus the Intern by Matthew Yamamoto. Genre: Comedy.
Texas Hold'Em by Max Vargas. Genre: Comedy. - Sometime Somewhere by Kenneth Woentono. Genre: Experimental.
- P.C.T by Cash Goehring & Galvin Gladden. Genre: Comedy, Horror.
- Contingency by Jaiden Martínez. Genre: Horror.
- Night Shift by Caden Kim. Genre: Horror.
By the end of the ceremony, it was time to grant the awards. Here are the categories, nominees, and winners for the awards:
Best Sound Design
Nominees: After The Thrill is Gone, Dreamboy, and The Bottom of the Bowl
Winner: The Bottom of the Bowl
Best Directing
Nominees: After the Thrill is Gone, P.C.T, and Night Shift
Winner: Night Shift
Best Screenplay
Nominees: Flightless, Matthew Versus the Intern, and Where is My Apple?
Winner: Where Is My Apple?
Best Cinematography
Nominees: After the Thrill is Gone, Sometime Somewhere, and The Bottom of the Bowl
Winner: After the Thrill is Gone
Best Performance
Nominees: Dreamboy, Night Shift, and Matthew Versus the Intern
Winner: Dreamboy
Best Editing
Nominees: Contingency, Les Trois Vus, and P.C.T.
Winner: Les Trois Vus
Originality/Creativity
Nominees: Flightless, P.C.T., and Where is My Apple?
Winner: P.C.T.
Best Production Design
Nominees: Flightless, Texas Hold’Em, and VAE movement
Winner: Flightless
Best Picture (Otherwise called Golden Anteater, after UCI's mascot)
Nominees: Dreamboy, Les Trois Vus, The Bottom of the Bowl
Winner: Dreamboy
People’s Choice
Winner: P.C.T.
Inside of FADA
Every year, the roster of board members and interns varies, but this year FADA has 20 members working behind their events, including ZotFest. There are four departments; each one of them has a board member as a director and four interns.
Programming oversees all of the planning related to ZotFest directly.
Tech & Video are in charge of making sure their social platforms, such as LinkTree and Discord, are well regulated. They also set up Film Freeway, the platform where they accept their submissions for ZotFest, and make sure that the technical aspects of the festival go smoothly.
Marketing & Social make sure that FADA has a presence on campus and social media while also hosting meetings with the general members of FADA. They make all of the posts about events and fundraisers hosted by the club.
Finance & Fundraising is in charge of organizing fundraisers, requesting grants for the club, and keeping track of the money raised that will later be distributed to FADA's events.
Yuktha: "I think previous years' boards struggled with engagement, especially after the pandemic. This year we have tried really hard to make sure that we can bring back engagement."
As mentioned by Yuktha, the new board is doing big efforts to push FADA's name on campus. There's a big sense of union between all of the members in wanting to achieve a set of goals for the club.
In terms of social media, FADA has had over 40 Instagram posts this year, which is the highest number of posts the club has ever had. Tech & Video has done a wonderful job setting up Film Freeway, managing submissions, and negotiating with those who have had trouble submitting films. Finance & Fundraising started an outreach program where they invited guest speakers to show up for FADA. They are industry professionals who have connections within the industry and provide valuable advice.
