The results of hardworking, artistic, and motivated film and cinema students will soon be playing at your local Oxnard movie theater this coming Oct. 22-23.

The Oxnard Student Digi Film Festival will be showcasing independent films from students and applicants of any age. The festival holds a time for students to become educated and dive into the world of imagination and creativity through filmmaking.

The Oxnard Student Digi Film Festival, now in its seventh year of being produced, is an outgrowth of the Oxnard Indie Film Festival, which also started as the Channel Islands Film Festival, which began about 15 years ago.

Kitty Merrill, current director of the Oxnard Digi Film Festival and Television Production specialist at Oxnard College, was chosen to lead the festival into what it is today.

“We have really now been focusing on showing student visions,” said Merrill. “I am excited about student work before it’s with a consciousness of being corporate, being commercial, being mass produced in focused groups to get depth, you have really original ideas and original visions and I think that is one of the most exciting things in movies, so I wanted to be a part of bringing that to the city of Oxnard and to the colleges as well.”

With a total of 80 movie entries being handed over to the film festival, only about 30 of them will be screened at the two-day festival.

George Ortega, one of the head directors of the Digi Film Festival, says that they are currently working on having a special guest speaker from the movie industry come out to one of the nights of the movie screenings.

“What is cool for students is if they are filmmakers and they don’t have a movie out yet, they can come out to view the movies at the film festival and then they can see something that they may get impressed by or they can see something that they could have done a better job at and then that inspires them to create a movie and turn it in to showcase their talents,” said Ortega

Being that the festival is taking place on an extended two days, each day holds something new for students to be a part of. The screening of the movies will be taking place on Friday Oct. 22 and Saturday Oct. 23 from 7p.m. to 10p.m. at Plaza 14 Cinema located in downtown Oxnard. Tickets to enter the theater for the screenings are $5 each night.

The Digital Students Filmmakers day is going to be taking place at Oxnard College on Saturday Oct. 23 at 8:30a.m. to 2:30p.m. This event will hold a time where students and anyone from the community can find out a little more about any aspect of movie making, whether you are already a filmmaker or not.

“People who come out to the Digi film festival on Oct. 22 and 23 are going to see some really exciting movies and that is simply a joy,” said Merrill.