The Center for Student Leadership, Ethics, and Public Service is hoping to raise hunger awareness with their Campus Movie Fest submission, “Stamps.”
The first part of this investigative film is comprised of several interviews from students giving their thoughts about poverty as well as hunger and the implementation of food stamps.
The remainder explores what living off of $4.14— the cost of food stamps per day, $130 a month, in N.C.— equates to at the grocery store. Three students examined their choices and bought, with their $4.14, what they thought was sufficient for a day’s worth of food.
Campus Movie Fest is a student film competition designed to showcase student talent through the creation of short, independently made, films. The winner of the competition will go to Hollywood on the wings of a $10,000 grant.
If “Stamps” makes it into the top 16, it will be premiered along with the other 15 at the campus cinema in Witherspoon this Sunday at 7:30 p.m. The doors open at 7:00 p.m. and students are encouraged to arrive early as a high turnout is expected.
The top 16 films are unannounced prior to the event, meaning all the filmmakers will have to wait until the premier to see if their work made it to the big screen.
However, even if “Stamps” is not shown at the event, or if students cannot make it to the premier, it will be made available for public viewing on the Campus Movie Fest website.
Director Alexandria McCall, freshman in mathematics and mathematics education, said the filmmaking process was tiring and somewhat frustrating.
“It was a lot of work,” McCall said. “I’m exhausted, but we had a lot of great comments.”
McCall, a member of the CSLEPS Hunger and Homelessness Committee, and the rest of her small group of students had some difficulties procuring the necessary equipment and had to work with considerable time constraints: only 5 days to shoot and edit the entire film, which could be at most five minutes long.
These stressors led to the need to make some tough decisions about what to include, according to McCall.
“I had to cut some stuff out that I really wanted in movie,” McCall said. “There was so much good material to work with.”
Chris Adkins, president of the CSLEPS Hunger and Homelessness Committee and senior in mechanical engineering, helped edit the film and took part in the food stamp experiment.
“It really shows how hard it is to eat healthily with food stamps,” said Adkins.
Overall, Adkins said he was happy with how the film turned out.
“I thought the movie turned out great, and I was very pleased with the results. Survival food stamps are something we’ve talked about for a long time, along with how to implement it, how to turn it into a program, and how to spread awareness,” Adkins said. “Then we stumbled upon Campus Movie Fest…It’s a great way to get the awareness out.”
Adkins also commented on the film’s message and moral.
“You’re really lucky to travel on a blue passport. And you’re really lucky to have somewhere to go where, if you fall on hard times, you can find between three churches in the county, free food, free shelter and free clothes every single day,” Adkins said. “You’re so fortunate, and you’re even more fortunate to never have be one of the people that needs to resort to that.”
McCall also said she thinks the movie has an important message and urged students to check it out.
“It’s a great movie. It has a message to give and offers a different viewpoint. It’s a movie that actually has a point. That’s why I want people to come out and see it,” McCall said.
McCall said she is excited by the prospect of educating the masses.
“Often I feel like poor people in the United States get overlooked. Everyone wants to go to Haiti, Africa and all around the world, but when it comes to people here there’s excuses, like that for some reason poor people here are lazy,” McCall said. “The goal here is to give people an idea of what’s really going on with poverty in America.”
