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Waseda student plays a leading role at Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival

Ryun Song, third year student from School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University

Year 2017 is the seventh year in which Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival (CFSFF) was held in Venice, Italy. It is organized by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and is the first European film festival managed by university students under the guidance of staff or professors in film studies and professionals from around the world. This year, the film festival was held from March 15 to 18, showcasing more than 3,000 short films from all over the world.

Ryun Song, a third year student from the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University participated in the event as an intern of International Press Group when she was doing her student exchange program at Venice International University. International Press Group does translation for press releases in Italian, English and Japanese, as well as guest interviews and interpretation. When Song worked at CFSFF, every day was a challenge but she felt that it was a valuable and fruitful experience. This year in 2017, Song was in-charge of all the administration work on behalf of Waseda University in the collaborated program between Waseda University and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice named Short Film Gest Meets Waseda Students.

Four student directors from Waseda University being interviewed by the media in Italy

In Short Film Fest Meets Waseda Students, Professor Norimasa Morita and four student directors were welcomed as guests. Hiroshi Takahashi, who is a graduate of Waseda University and scriptwriter for the well-known horror film Ring, was also present. In his workshop called Hiroshi Takahashi Masterclass, the film The Carol of the Old Ones (2012) which Takahashi directed was screened. After the screening of the film, Takahashi had a question and answer session with the students of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival receiving great public response

In order to make the event a success, Song had to write notices for the film festival and manage everyone’s schedules. Her participation serves as a bridge between participants of Waseda University and Italy. Song recalled that there were many people studying Japanese at International Press Group, and the language used at work was a mixture of Italian, English and Japanese. She hopes to make use of these experiences she gained when she was doing her student exchange program in Italy and continue serving as a bridge between Italy and Japan.

Venice Canals