The Little Muddy Film and Media Festival will be showcasing various media forms for the fourth year on April 13th from 6:00p.m. to 8:00p.m. in Guyon Auditorium.

The event is free to the campus and local community.

While the Big Muddy Film Festival showcases films from around the world, one of their few rules are that Students at Southern Illinois University cannot submit.

This is where the Little Muddy comes in, the Little Muddy Film and Media Festival is exclusive to SIU students.

“The Little Muddy is basically an annual extension of the Big Muddy. So where the Big Muddy is the external, emerging and accomplished filmmakers, the Little Muddy is kind of our celebration of the artistry and skill that our students here at SIU are learning and a chance for them to showcase all of that,” Next year’s Big Muddy Film Festival President, Aster Arseneau said.

The festival is open to several different forms of media and art giving students an opportunity to showcase their work.

Students can still submit their work until April 10th at https://filmfreeway.com/TheLittleMuddyFestival. Films should be 10 minutes or under.

“We’re expecting all sorts of media, films, videos, animation, photography, GIFs, digital art, honestly the whole spectrum of what you would typically see on social media,” Current Big Muddy Film Festival President, Kelechi Agwuncha said.

Agwuncha said the festival is accepting forms media ranging from short films, GIFs and digital art. The Little Muddy is encouraging all forms of art to enter the realm of competition.

The festival is less of a competition and more of an opportunity for students to enjoy each other’s work Agwuncha said.

“It brings many of the RSOs of mass comm together to just present their work, despite the fact that it seems like a competition it’s honestly a showcase of student work because we never had that space to see everyone’s work collectively and without tension,” Agwuncha said. “That’s what we’re trying to do with little muddy, just to provide a neutral, unified platform for people to show their work to others.”

Awards will be given out to artists who submit along with first, second, and third place prizes.

Some of those prizes include Big Muddy merch from past festivals, gift cards, and even a possible recognition on the mass communication website.

Little Muddy is changing things up a bit this year as well going from three to four jurors. These jurors will be the ones deciding the winners along with giving critique to artist’s works.

This year’s jurors are MFA student Lindsey Washington, Film Critic and Professor Walter Metz, Art History Lecturer Angela Reinoehl and Honorary Juror Rhonda Rothrock.

The Little Muddy Film and Media Festival is free to all and free pizza will be offered at the festival as well.

Staff writer Kitt Fresa can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @kittfresa.

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