If you’re a fan of film festivals, both local and international, then you’ve got a lot to choose from this May here in Milwaukee.

The 11^th Annual Milwaukee Underground Film Festival wrapped up this past weekend. If you missed that, well, you have another opportunity to view some great student work this Friday, May 13. Starting at 7 p.m., the bi-annual UWM Student Film and Video Festival celebrates its 30^th year (and 60^th presentation) in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Union Theatre (2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.).

Organized by SCAN (the Student Cinema Action Network), the festival will be juried by a panel of five outside judges: Angela Catalano, Executive Assistant of Milwaukee Film; Brian Gallagher, co-director of Milwaukee Children’s Film Festival; Ryan Dembroski, executive producer of AboutFace Media; Milwaukee film artist Scott Johnson; and Timm Gable, Broadcast Producer at Cramer Krasselt.

This year’s program consists of 17 short films (directed by 16 students). Here is a short preview.

The Date by Joseph Alane
A 16mm/digital video comedy depicting a father who is worried about his daughter’s first date until the battle for ownership of her heart is settled by a silly fantasy of convenience.

Immanence by Nikolaus Aldrich
A retelling of Cain & Abel through the complex psyche of a man whose story may very well be false.

Faint Memories by Ryan Allsop
The story of a man who discovers his mother’s dead body and attempts to cope with the haunting image.

Breathing for Babies by Joshua Baum
A found footage project edited from scraps of 16mm film salvaged from cutting bins and manipulated in household food waste. Can we find meaning in the things we discard?

The Last Place by Joshua Baum
A portrait of a monastic life at Our Lady of the Resurrection Benedictine Monastery in rural upstate New York.

Secrets of Animal Navigation by Daniel Boville
A snapshot in time and space with regards to the human process and its affect on the world around us.

Worry by Carol Brandt
A girl writes down her problems and folds them into paper boats, leaving them behind.

Interval by Nazli Dincel
A structural approach to Man Ray’s Return to Reason (1923).

Flask by Eric Fritz
Flask outlines a pattern of addiction which strains personal relationships until one is completely isolated.

Sun Spots by Elizabeth Hagen
A filmic diary of minute moments, spanning one summer’s time.

Try, Try Again by Mia Letendre
A young boy, inspired by the flight of birds, takes various attempts at flight himself.

Luminous by Bennett Litton
A piece about light and movement and how it interacts and evolves throughout our day.

Documenting Westphal by Kurt Raether
A confessional essay about a young film student and his failed attempts to document a gubernatorial candidate.

Podulation by Chris Ouchie
An alien being is transported into the home of one unsuspecting male.

Let There Be Lamp Brian Slawson
“The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

Seis de Seis by Antonio Vargas
A glimpse of a girl embraced by a colorfully cinematographic world.

The End by Julie Wolterstorff
“…And I try to find meanings and maybe there was none to be found or maybe I just never found it.”

The 2011 UWM Student Film and Video Festival takes place this Friday, May 13 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus on the second floor of the Student Union in the UWM Union Theatre. Start time is 7 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

Film! Food! Booze! Music! One-on-one social networking! Wheelchair rugby! What’s not to love?

The second presentation of the UW-Waukesha Field Film Festival gets underway this Thursday at the beautiful and spacious Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, located on the UW-Waukesha campus (1500 W. University Dr.).

This bi-annual festival (which runs through Friday) was formed when Rex Sikes, a local filmmaker and multi-hyphenate talent who runs his own online film site, Rex Sikes’ Movie Beat, was approached by a colleague to help UW-Waukesha create a film festival for the school’s students. He joined forces with the university and its film club, the Waukesha Film Society, as well as Firestarter Films, a well-known local film production company, and created the Field Film Festival to feature films made by students from the university as well as non-student talent. The festival’s first presentation took place this past February.

All festival entries run 20 minutes or less, and will compete for prizes in three categories: Best Overall Film, Best Student Film and Best Actor in a Film. Student-produced films will screen Thursday from 4-6 p.m., while non-student fare will screen on Friday from 6:30-10 p.m., followed by the presentation of the awards. Admission to the festival is $5 at the door.

Topper’s Pizza is one of the event’s sponsors and will cater the festival at no charge to patrons. Alcohol will be available for purchase. Live musical entertainment will be provided by Animals in Human Attire during scheduled breaks in the festival program. Prizes will be raffled off.

And in what is arguably a film festival first, wheelchair rugby (aka Murderball) is also part of the scheduled festivities.