 The president's budget proposal eliminates public media funding. Learn how you can help at lptv.org slash action. Short films from all over the world made their big screen debut right here in Bemidji. For this week's in focus, I got a glimpse at some Minnesota student-made films at the Headwaters Film Festival. The student-run festival invites filmmakers from far and wide to submit their movies. On Thursday, audience members were treated to films from the Colorado Environmental Film Festival. International student films were submitted from as far away as Turkey, Germany, Senegal and Australia. We made the video the weekend before the final deadline. Today's students from around the state had their screening. For students like Judson Theron and William Nordstrom, this was the first time anyone had seen their hard work. It's kind of surreal almost that these are kind of going to be shown to people and I'm glad because it's a it's a cool art form that I'm proud to be able to share with people. The two students, one from Bemidji State and the other from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, collaborated on three films together. We split time up here in the cities. They'll come down and work on some projects and I'll come up here and we'll shoot some video. Many of the films took a significant amount of time to create. Lost 40 took about five months to make, the seven-minute and 38-second film. The editing process for me is like you could spend 10 hours editing a five-second period, you know, just getting everything right. All the time spent paid off. Little did Martin Gonzalez know that he and the rest of the film crew were about to be award winners as decided by three faculty members. We watched all of the films and then we decided the winners and this one was the best film because it's a really spectacular film. For some of the students, the festival provided the opportunity to take in these high-quality films. I like to make films myself and someday hope to be a filmmaker, so it's really cool to get to see all these smaller films that people have put together all around the world. And for others, this was just the beginning. Just say I didn't plan to put the film up and read that we're working on right now. I just hope to keep on working on films and then just documentary on my own. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.