Cleveland State professor’s film festival to feature students – The Cauldron

By Anna Toth

Cleveland State University professor Mike Suglio will be hosting the “Short. Sweet. Film Fest” March 2 to 4. The film festival has been highlighting Cleveland State student films alongside other local and international short films for seven years.

This year, there were over 400 submissions for the film fest. Despite the large number, Suglio and the panel of judges for the film fest narrowed it down to around 100.

“We had to narrow it down a lot,” Suglio said. “But we watched every single film.”

Films will be shown at the Alex Theater, a part of the Metropolitan 9 in Downtown Cleveland.

The event will be catered and the showcased filmmakers are welcome to invite all of their friends and family.

Tickets to the event start out at $25 and go up to $100, depending on how many days you a buy pass for. The event will be catered and include films not only from the Cleveland area but nationally and internationally too.

Suglio created the “Short. Sweet. Film Fest.” seven years ago after realizing that there weren’t a lot of opportunities for Cleveland filmmakers to show their films locally.

As a filmmaker himself, Suglio knows the amount of work that’s put into short films and how important it is to be able to show them.

“It’s kind of disappointing to put all of that hard work into a film only for it to end up next to cat videos online,” Suglio said.

In addition to founding the film festival, Suglio directed a feature-length documentary, “The Struggle for Existence,” which is centered around the Cleveland Natural History Museum and the Creation Museum. In addition, he’s directed several short films that helped inspire the film fest.

The film festival is emphasizing on the short and sweet part of its title, with chosen films that are no more than 30 minutes long.

Awards will also be given out at the film festival as determined by Suglio and the fellow judges; an Emmy award-winning producer/director David St. Philips; film buff Cyprian Piroch and television writer Alex Sherman, who also worked on The Avengers.

On Saturday, there will be an hour of films made by Cleveland State students. The festival will also include a Q and A session with the filmmakers in attendance, as well as an opportunity to network with other filmmakers.

Suglio hopes that the “Short. Sweet. Film Fest.” will serve as a way to help the Cleveland film community as well as give students a chance to shine. A professor at Cleveland State for two years, Suglio knows that there’s a lot of potential in the Cleveland State students.

“I’ve worked with a lot of the students here,” Suglio said. “I’m excited for everyone else to see what they can do.”

Ticket and film information can be found at:

shortsweetfilmfest.com