History
The Highbridge Film Festival was co-founded in 2005 by Asbury College Media Communications Department professors Greg Bandy and Jeff Day. Jim Owens, department chair, strongly supported the idea. They envisioned the event as a way to showcase student films and in the process, encourage visual storytelling. Traditionally, the festival has accepted about a dozen student films and provided a venue to premiere special presentations from the department.
Production and promotion of the festival is also largely handled by students from Asbury's Special Events Seminar class, who theme, advertise, direct, and help facilitate the evening under the instruction of School of Communication Arts professors.
Since its inception in 2005, the festival has grown from a small campus event to one of the largest attractions for the university year-round. In 2007, the location for the festival was changed from Doddridge-Holland Theater to Hughes Auditorium in order to accomodate increased attendance from students, locals, and out-of-state visitors.
By its second year, the Highbridge Film Festival had already started a tradition by inviting professionals from the film industry as special guests to the competition for judging the entries. In 2008, these judges included Bruce Broughton, an Emmy award-winning composer, and Erik Lokkesmoe, a founder of the marketing firm DIFFERENT DRUMMER.
2019 marks the 15th anniversary of the festival, which has grown into a nationally recognized collegiate film festival delighting audiences and attracting wide ranging interest from the film industry.