The Kate Regan Short Film Festival started in 2014 as a way to showcase the experiences of students who had studied (or volunteered) abroad. Beloved UP Spanish Professor Kate Regan wanted to share the richness of encounters with other cultures with the campus community on the Bluff. The first “Digi-Shorts” festival drew five enthusiastic entries from students who had gone to Nicaragua, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. It was Kate’s hope that this year’s festival would be bigger, bolder and would includes entries by faculty and staff in addition to students. The Second Annual Kate Regan Short Film Festival more than exceeded her hopes with 33 entries and a campus-wide reach. True to the vision of its founder, it remains at its core a way to embrace cultures, ideas, and lands. It is a way to send the best of the Bluff out into the world, whether it be downtown Portland or Dubai, and bring it back again — transformed, broadened, and eager to try it again somewhere else. Planning will soon be underway for the 2016 festival.
