BSU students to partner with Heartland Film

From Ball State University Ball State University film production students are getting an opportunity to learn from Heartland Film, an Indianapolis-based company.

Heartland Film is well known for hosting the Heartland International Film Festival. It will also be a partnership between Heartland and the University’s new Radiance Cinema.

It will be a year-long partnership that is formed jointly between the College of Communication, Information, and Media and the College of Fine Arts.

Radiance Cinema will allow the students to participate in the film festival and will showcase them in the Summer of 2024 at the Indy Shorts Festival.

“We are excited to partner with Heartland Film,” Benjamin Strack, assistant teaching professor of Media at Ball State said. “The collaboration between the Department of Theatre and Dance (in CFA) and the Department of Media (in CCIM) provides new opportunities to expand student expertise, and these efforts are unified into the new program, Radiance Cinema.”

Strack said that the collaborations gives a professional goal for students.

Mark Cabus, assistant teaching professor of Acting and co-collaborator in the College of Fine Arts, also has high hopes for the program’s success.

“Radiance Cinema is a class and a program whose time has come,” Mr. Cabus said. “With the passing of Act 361 last year, providing tax credits to film and television production companies coming to our state, we hope to cultivate resources for those companies and our students in their post-college careers.”