Stephen Konsel on the Showcase red carpet before a screening of his documentary, The Return of the Pump-King
(Edinboro, PA – December 11, 2025)
Despite the challenges of severe winter weather, the Showcase of Philm and Animation welcomed moviegoers to Cole Memorial Auditorium Thursday night.
The screening marks an important move for the event from the Pogue Student Center. It’s been relocated to the larger venue to accommodate capacity crowds typically frowned upon by fire marshals.
As usual, the show featured student-made films, but Thursday’s program also spotlighted the work of faculty and alumni. Animation professor Brad Pattullo’s started the show with his most recent stop-motion film, Viscous. The short has been screened in Philadelphia and Allentown, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; Mobile, Alabama; Athens, Greece; and Paris, France. The film is notable for Pattullo’s collaboration with student animators Taney Basinger, Cameron Howe, and Lina Westlund. Such alliances demonstrate the benefit of working artist/scholars to the résumés of students and alumni.
2025 Philm alumnus Xander Brzezinski, now a Digital Media Operations Manager, returned to the Boro with a film following organic potatoes from Troyer Farms to Folkland Foods where they’re turned into frozen fries. 2024 graduate Jared Bupp shared a montage of photographs taken during his recent tenure at the Triangle X Ranch near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The largest public event mounted by Edinboro’s celebrated Art Department, this night of student work is central to the experience of filmmaking. “A film isn’t a film until it has an audience,” Digital Filmmaking Professor Brian Fuller is fond of saying.
“I was suddenly so nervous when our film, The Asias, came on,” said senior Animator Josh Mackall. “But I was really paying attention to the way the audience was reacting to it. I was terrified at first that the jokes were falling flat, but then they started to laugh and it was incredible!”
“It’s so huge,” enthused Charlie Ensinger, a junior Philm Lab Aide who directed the documentary On the Flip Side. “You just can’t believe how different it is to see it on a screen as big as this one.”
The Showcase is often a gathering occasion for supportive families. “I think I’ve got enough cousins here to fill an entire row of seats,” said junior Shane Cannon, who worked on advanced projects in ART 4105, Color and Image Enhancement, as well as in ART 4405, Narrative Filmmaking.
The next screening of student films will be Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 8pm in Cole Auditorium at the Dave Weinkauf Film Festival.