Jessica Vasquez, a Sacramento State Digital Media student, has won a short film festival award for the second year in a row at Access Sacramento’s short film festival, “A Place Called Sacramento 2008.” The film festival was shown at Sacramento’s Crest Theater on Oct. 5.
“It was really amazing, because I’ve only been screenwriting for about two years,” Vasquez says. ”It’s an amazing feeling to have my work out there and to have people actually like it.”
The 10-minute film, “Saturday’s a Rugby Day,” is about a rugby team at Sac State during its first game of the season. Vasquez decided to produce a film based on rugby because the sport isn’t represented often in the American media, and she herself enjoys the sport a lot. Vasquez has been playing for the Sacramento State rugby club for five years.
“It was really cool because my teammates became involved a lot in the film,” Vasquez says.
Vasquez also wanted to dedicate the film to her grandmother who passed away from breast cancer a few years ago and decided to make that an important point in the film.
The movie focused on the inner struggle that the main character faced while dealing with the death of her best friend to breast cancer, and the responsibility of taking over her job on the team.
“It’s a universal concept,” says Vasquez. “A lot of people felt moved by the film.”
Vasquez is looking forward to future endeavors after graduating in May. She hopes to work for an independent production company and would like to focus on screenwriting.
For more information about Access Sacramento, or to view all of the short films, visit the website at www.accesssacramento.org.
About the writer:
Sacramento State’s Lana Tsiberman can be reached at 278-6156.
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