Going Digital: A Conversation with the Harvard College Film Festival

The undergraduate-run Harvard College Film Festival (HCFF) allows young filmmakers from around the world to submit films for evaluation, participate in a multi-day screening event, attend panels, and access a global network of artists.

Matthew Chang ’22, an Art, Film, and Visual Studies (AFVS) concentrator and co-president of the HCFF, spoke about the experience of transitioning to a digital platform for this year’s event.

Chang, who joined HCFF as a sophomore, recently assumed the mantle of co-president. Because of the pandemic, HCFF’s initial plans to hold its festival on-campus last year were thrown into confusion. He noted how he and co-president Derrick T. Ochiagha ’22, a Crimson Arts writer, had to adapt as a result of COVID-19.

“It’s been a good amount of work, trying to learn as we go,” Chang said.

Chang emphasized the difficulty of building engagement for digital film screenings. Citing recurrent film outings to Boston as an important ritual for HCFF members, he noted the loss of real-time, in-person connection as a critical challenge.

“It’s actually so much harder to get people to watch films as a group online or through Zoom,” Chang said. “I feel like the beauty of our club on campus was being able to watch shows together, like going to the AMC every week or every two weeks, watching a film, and talking about it.”

Chang shared that the HCFF board has been devising ways to translate the interactive excitement of in-person programming to digital spaces. One idea Chang mentioned was incentivizing participation with small prizes.

“We had an idea for a movie trivia with a prize like an Amazon gift card. Just something like that, where people can come in and actually feel like they can be involved,” he said.

In past years, HCFF has invited industry luminaries to speak at their events, with an emphasis on amplifying diverse voices and celebrating lesser-known filmmakers. Last year, for instance, “Crazy Rich Asians” screenwriter Adele Lim came to speak at the festival. Despite the myriad of challenges, Chang noted that speaker outreach has become easier following the transition.

“On campus, we would reach out to a lot of people and it would be hard to, one, get them to respond, but two, after that, they’d have to clear their schedule, they’d have to be free. And then we’d have to fly them out, get them a place to stay,” Chang said.

“But on Zoom, people can just join Zoom meetings, which is awesome. Talent can just join the Zoom meetings for 30 minutes and just talk to us, like, talk to people,” he continued. “And so in that sense, I think we’ll have a robust lineup for this year.”

Chang noted that the abrupt transition has compelled HCFF to develop innovative ways of engaging with film and facilitating spaces for discussion.

“A good thing about being online — just the whole thing changing — is that we really have to think about the best way to showcase our films and the best ways to get people to watch,” he said.

Toward the end of the conversation, Chang reflected on the broader role of HCFF in fostering a cinematic culture at Harvard.

“On Harvard’s campus, I feel like very little people directly pursue film, but so many people are interested in film,” Chang said.

He further explained that, despite the small number of concentrators in AFVS every year, many students want to engage with film but simply do not know where or how to begin.

“The fact that 10 people can be actually studying film, but hundreds of people want to be involved in HCFF, is just amazing,” Chang said. “I think HCFF brings so many people who are sort of interested in film, opens up film to them, and makes them question, you know, if they want to dig deeper into film, if they’re really passionate about it.”

When asked whether HCFF instills in Harvard students a love for film, Chang expressed his belief that HCFF serves to draw out the passion latent in individuals.

“I think that it was already in them,” he said. “But HCFF helped them discover that.”