News from Opening Night of the streaming 52nd Michigan Student Film Festival

Thanks everyone for making our opening night of the 52nd Michigan Student Film Festival a success last night--despite a short delay and some downed local internet stations following the earlier storms--thus the rather 8mm look for the first 30 Zapruder-like minutes or so.

See the entire restored episode below.

Just in case, we've since doubled our bandwidth upload speed. Thanks for your patience!

We'll also be uploading a higher res version of the show later today on Facebook, YouTube and our website (www.daftonline.org) and provide links
Special thanks to Mary Beth Castorri, the DIA and its Detroit Film Theatre for its 30 year partnership in bringing you the festival and to Buddy's Pizza and our partnership colleges: College for Creative Studies, Lawrence Technological University, Motion Picture Institute, Specs Howard School of Media Arts and University of Detroit Mercy.

Congratulations once again to DAFT's Educator of the Year, the amazing Scott A. Galeski, founder of the Downriver Detroit Student Film Consortium.
Hats off to DAFT VP Mike Conrad (Royal Oak HS) for his great hosting for the K-8, Animation and Music Video categories.

Coverage continues Friday May 15th at 7 pm with DAFT board member and filmmaker Ted Houser at the helm for the high school PSAs, News/Sports and Experimental categories.

Congratulations to prize winners from Thursday's episode:

• Ron Castorri Audience Choice Award ($125 ProCam gift card) "Blast Off" by Nathan Filmore (Addams Elementary School, Royal Oak--advisor Lori Filmore)

• Animation Grand Prize ($250 ProCam gift card): Ola Khozak's "The Beauty of Diversity" (Byron Center High School, Advisor Julie VanderLaan)

• Music Video Grand Prize ($250 ProCam gift card): "GO!" by Brogan Loewen,Gloria Brown, Connor Smith, Romeo Keyser and De’Quan Jones (Downriver Detroit Student Film Consortium, Advisor Scott A. Galeski)

Raffle Prize Winners ($50 ProCam Gift Cards) selected from all 300 entries:

• “Beyond the Basement” by Alex Gustanski, Alec Bryan, Brenden Miller, Guiseppe Prior. (Lake Orion High School-Advisor, Roger Smith)

• “Alex’s Secret Government Prison Survival Guide” by Alex Migliore (Pankow Center in L’Anse Creuse--Advisor, Michael Kaufman)

• "Protect Your Head" by Austin Budai and Dylan Yacoub (Walled Lake Western High School-Advisor Stephanie Doppke)

Here's the entire episode!