Students are organized into four planning committees to ensure every base is covered. Photo courtesy of Blue Frame Film Festival. 

KATE NORROD | STAFF REPORTER | knorrod@butler.edu 

The Spring 2026 semester marks the launch of the Blue Frame Film Festival, a collective effort of a class of creative media and entertainment (CME) students. The film festival is being designed from the ground up, planned and organized completely by undergraduate students, and will take place on April 23. 

The students in the Entertainment Criticism course are organized into four committees responsible for planning and creating every aspect of the film festival. 

Kiersten Houser, lecturer of creative media and entertainment and filmmaker, has been involved with numerous film festivals and emphasized their significance. She feels that many undergraduate students across the nation were not being taught the production aspect of film and wanted to change that for her students. 

“The film festival class — I’m hoping — is going to bridge that gap,” Houser said. “[My students] will know what it takes to run a film festival, [which] also connects them with networking opportunities, awards and prizes.”

Three awards will be given out during the festival: Audience Choice Award, The Bluest Hue Award and Best Screenplay. Undergraduate students of all majors and backgrounds are encouraged to submit original screenplays and films 20 minutes and under. 

Films can be submitted via FilmFreeway, the industry standard for film festivals which Houser explained functions similarly to the CommonApp. The early deadline for submission is March 11, and all films must be submitted by April 8. For filmmakers unfamiliar with the website, a tutorial workshop will be hosted by Houser on March 3 in Fairbanks. 

Junior CME major Haley Lance serves as the committee chair of operations and planning. She worked as an assistant festival manager for the Film Festival at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles last summer and already had some behind-the-scenes knowledge. 

“We’re hoping to create a new kind of environment on this campus for all sorts of people to enjoy film,” Lance said. 

While she has some experience working with a film festival already, Lance has been very involved with learning alongside her committee. She mentioned the many moving parts and balancing all the tasks on their to-do list as part of the challenges of creating a film festival.

“There’s so much that goes into a film festival,” Lance said. “Not just the films that are being shown, but the food, the venue [and] the people. It’s a lot of logistics.”

Junior CME major Alex McCarty runs the videography, editing and technology committee. Currently, they are responsible for filming promotional videos of the festival and documenting their process, and will be running the cameras and filming the event on April 23. 

“It’s been a really rewarding experience to communicate with the other committee chairs [and] have a more managerial role in the festival,” McCarty said. “That’s going to help me a lot going into my career, knowing that perspective.”

McCarty also noted the festival’s ability to fill in a gap that the community has been missing. 

“You don’t think of film as being a huge part of Indianapolis culture,” McCarty said. “Being able to create this film festival and go against that assumption is really fun, because so many people in Indianapolis and on Butler’s campus love film, and they don’t have a way to express it.” 

The festival hopes to expand one day beyond Butler’s campus and become a hub for filmmakers in the Midwest, or even nationally. 

Houser mentioned the hard work of the students in the development of the festival. 

“Students lead the effort,” Houser said. “I might help organize and design a class around it, but they are putting all of this in motion, and they’re the ones [who] are creating the content. It is their creative vision.”

Junior CME major McKenna Curless is the committee chair of marketing and public relations. Her team is creating a brand for the festival and is working on getting the word out to the public. She corroborated Houser’s statement, discussing the work she and her classmates have put in thus far.

“[The festival is] for students, made by students,” Curless said. “I think that’s a really important message, because [we] as students want to support other students and other filmmakers.”

The venue for the festival will be announced at a later date. Interested students, faculty and staff are encouraged to look for updates via the festival’s Instagram and LinkedIn. 

“I want people to see that festivals are important, not just as a celebration of work, but that [they] bring people together in a good way,” Houser said.