Sundeis is the annual Brandeis student run-film festival hosted by Brandeis Television. The Justice interviewed the event coordinator Aviva Davis ’21.

1: Tell me a bit about yourself and your position in this event.

I am on the E-board for Brandeis Television. I do events and manage the memberships… I started out with BTV as a first year, and I had no idea what it was .… From that moment [I had] a really special connection with the club and the board. And now I am [on] E-board and it’s really amazing.

2: I noticed that on the Sundeis Facebook page you said you accept “almost anything.” What’s the selection process like?

So we, in the past years, have been a lot more strict about time constraints. Most of the time we accept films that are between 1 and 10 minutes. This year, we weren’t as strict in that area because there were a couple longer films that we just really wanted to include. … One of the films in this year’s festival is about 20 minutes, which is pretty long but we’re excited for people to see it. ... Regarding certain rules that we like to follow, profanity is fine as long as it’s not extensive. We really don’t want to have a lot of nudity in our films. We want to make sure that people are being respectful to the community. … And our process regarding trimming down the length of the festival, we prioritize seniors, which can really suck sometimes … but we really want to make sure that they’re getting their stuff out there before graduate. And if the people are submitting feel really passionate about showing their staff, then we hope they will submit next year. … Additionally, if there are folks who are submitting multiple films, we will start with one and if we have time to add more of their works then we will.  

3: Sundeis also gives out a variety of awards to the participants’  films. Who will be judging the films?

We don’t like to think of it as a competition, per se. … However, we do have a series of awards. We try to stray away from titles like “Best this” or “Most whatever.” It’s more of like a like an appreciation of the people that are submitting their works because it’s a big deal. There is a difference between making your film and keeping it for yourself and making your film and presenting it at a festival. The reason that we have these awards is to honor the amount of work and dedication and blood, sweat and tears that these students have put into their films and really taking the next step to show it to the rest of us.

4: Filmmaking is complicated and required many different kinds of knowledge. Does BTV provide a sufficient amount of support to the filmmakers?

So BTV has its own little vault of equipment but all of us [also] have Getz training, or I suppose it’s SIMS now [The Sound and Image Media Studios]. People who join the club or who want to check out equipment can do so through us or they can just go to SIMS themselves of get the proper training, so they don’t have to ask us to check out equipment for them. …  But anybody who wants hands on experience can come to our meetings or they could just borrow our stuff, and we will just record it and check in with them every couple of days or so, to give us a timeline for how long till they will give them back. And if the stuff BTV has doesn’t work for them, then there are welcome to head up to SIMS and we are happy to walk them through, checking out equipment.

6: Anything else you want to say to the people?

Brandeis Television has a Facebook, Instagram and YouTube page. All the usernames are Brandeis Television. A lot of people don’t know where we are and where our media goes. Our office is in SCC 339 on the top floor to the right. All the things we create end up on our YouTube page and our Facebook page. Just look up Brandeis Television. We will be happy to get your clicks. Also... I cannot stress how much we want people to come to our meetings no matter how often they can make it… We are happy to have anyone and everyone all the time. Wednesday, 8 p.m., SCC 339.