By Bethany De Korte
For the Daily Titan

A crowd of teachers, parents, friends and students gathered in the Ruby Gerontology Center Saturday night to witness 30 finalists, chosen for their success in media arts, at the 19th annual Media Arts Festival.

The finalists were chosen from a competitive university system which selected proficient artists from 15 different Cal State Universities. The 30 finalists were chosen from 11 different universities out of 171 applicants to debut their projects before a live audience. It was an opportunity for students to review and critique the outstanding work their colleagues created.

The event began at 6 p.m. and continued into the evening with a wide variety of films including “Xtreme Dog-Walking Commercial,” “The Vagina Song,” “La Paz” and “Jessica.”

Each film’s topic reflected the creators’ personalities and creativity and contained various subjects including passionate adultery, western saddle-making, astronomy, short commercials, struggles faced by the gay community and communing with God on the toilet.

The films were divided into nine categories: short screenplay, feature screenplay, television, narrative, music video, interactive, experimental, documentary and animation. The audience laughed, cheered and, at times, cried.

“It was way better than last year’s. I liked it. It was very serious and intimate,” said Fresno State University psychology major Sarah Borjas.

Her boyfriend Rhinit Dheri, a film major from Fresno State, agreed but was disappointed at the lack of a seminar preceding the films’ debuts.

In previous years, professors and industry professionals were given the opportunity to share their advice and expertise in a seminar prior to the festival, but the option was unavailable this year; they were in attendance, however.

Allan Bloom and Tommy Longson, graduate professors at Cal State Los Angeles, came to support their students and expressed gratification in contributing to their students’ accomplishments. Bloom testified to the demanding labor his students had put into their projects, saying that it can take up to an entire semester for a film to be completed.

After the festival, the projects are compiled into a DVD collection and sent to industry experts and various CSU media arts departments. Some are also posted on the Media Arts Festival Web site at MediaArtsFestival.org.