While the local film industry may be slowing down, UGA’s film students are still producing festival quality work.
The Athens Film Festival was August 27-30th and among the more than 110 independent films screened from around the world, many of them were shot in the state.
Several of these locally filmed projects were done by students and graduates from the University of Georgia.
“The Damned Thing,” a short film adapted from an American classic by Ambrose Bierce, was made as a thesis project by Christopher Lewis and Estevan Valdes, who are both graduates from UGA’s Masters film program.
Valdes said that he and Lewis began planning the film early on while in the program: “We started working on it in the spring of 2024, and we were developing it, like super early on. He had already known that this is what he wanted to do for his thesis and I really liked the story, kind of like the mystery and the intrigue of it all…”
This short film and all of the other films screened at the festival will be available from September 1st-7th through the online virtual festival.
