Since I have come to Goshen College, I have heard about the River Bend Film Festival, which is held in downtown Goshen. But this year I had a chance to help out as part of the FiveCore Media team. This year’s festival had over 70 entrees and other amazing artists. On top of all the wonderful films and events, this year’s festival had two special events that made the festival much more exciting. One was the showing of “Deep Dive,” the documentary made by FiveCore Media and Goshen College film students, and the grand finale event of the festival was an amazing funk/R&B concert with “Rudy Love and The Love Family.”

Going to the festival, I did not have much experience in any film production related area. But after putting 44 hours of work and taking 40,617 steps for the festival in four days, I am proud to say that I have been able to hold cameras, take B-roll shots, learned some technical housekeeping tips for cameras, helped to set up a jib and operated the camera on it and so many other jobs I have never done before.

There were different events all throughout the Goshen downtown. I believe I did not just learn how to film and use a camera; but I also learned more about the Goshen downtown too. I really appreciated and enjoyed the collaboration of the businesses in Goshen; especially the downtown businesses. Attending/working for this festival did not just make me feel like I am watching movies, but also made me feel like I was getting to know “the good” of the city of Goshen at the same time.

I was lucky to be able to watch and attend some of the movies and events along with working. The movies and the events and all the work that was put in them, were very inspiring. One of my favorite movies that was shown was “My Indiana Muse.” The story of this documentary is about an artist, Robert Townsend, who happens to buy nine slides from eBay website that the main subjects were a couple who their travels, smiles, visuals, and lifestyle amazed him. He decided to paint one of the slides and names them “Kay” and “Jack.” He started painting the slides and they became successful. Meanwhile he was very interested in seeing the rest of the collection of the slides that he was told existed by the seller. After fourteen months of trying to see the rest of the slides, he was successful to recieve 2,968 slides of this family. Luckily one day, as he looked through the slides, he saw that “Kay” and “Jack” had name tags on them in one of the slides that he saw. After that, he started doing more research and find more about who were “Helen” and “Roy,” and find Helen’s niece, Cheryl, and travel to Indiana and see where they lives, and hear more about their life and stories. This documentary had an amazing story and for me, the art work of Robert Townsend, who the documentary was about, was absolutely stunning. What was an extra point for me through this film festival was that I got to work the talk back Robert Townsend was in for his documentary. I was able to hear the story and more from him before the screening of the documentary itself. I thought this was an unique and awesome experience for me.