
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 […]

Live-Streaming Info for 52nd Michigan Student Film Festival (7 pm, May 14-17)
The longest-running student film festival in the country will hold the 52nd Michigan Student Film Festival online–May 14-17th continuing its 30-year partnership with the Detroit Institute of Arts spectacular Detroit Film Theatre via DAFT’s Facebook Live Event at this link.From nearly 300 entries, 53 selections have been chosen as Best-of-Show by a judging panel of […]

DAFT News: Free Film-Education Units for Teachers via Scorcese’s Film Foundation
Modules 1-3 Now Fully OnlineIn October of 2018 a group of Michigan teachers had the incredible opportunity to preview three modules of an ambitious 10 module curriculum that uses movies to teach concepts in American history and culture. DAFT coordinated this workshop series in partnership with the DIA.Called Portraits of America – Democracy on Film, this curriculum […]
DAFT Announces First-Round Festival Judging Moved to Online
March 11, 2020 – 6 pmWith the recent coronavirus news, DAFT has decided to move its first round of voting online for the first time instead of on-site at Lawrence Tech and the Careerline Tech Center (Holland), originally scheduled for Saturday March 14th. While we always look forward to judging day with the camaraderie and substance it provides […]

2020 Poster Contest Winners – 52nd Michigan Student Film Festival
DAFT Announces its 52nd Poster Contest Winners Congratulations to all 42 students who entered designs for this year’s festival. The following three students and their work will be honored onstage on April 25, 2020 at the DIA’s Detroit Film Theatre. First Place: Daytona Irwin William D. Ford Tech Center (Wayne Westland) Honorable Mention Honorees: Christiana […]

Census2020 PSA Competition – Free Entry for DAFT’s 52nd Michigan Student Film Festival
Census2020 PSA Competition – Free Entry Teacher Materials: PDF Flyer for Class Distribution PowerPoint Slides (PDF form) for Class Presentation 2020census.gov 2020 is a crucial year for Michigan citizens. DAFT is joining the effort to promote a full and fair Census count by sponsoring a special competition for public service announcements that educate about and […]

2019 Festival Photos
2019 Michigan Student Film Festival Photos Photography by Michael Kuentz, Visual Ronin Media (www.visualronin.com) Additional photos: Ted Houser, Patrick Morrow, Kevin Walsh