The Student Voices Short Film Contest challenges USC students to create films using testimony from the Visual History Archive.

The contest is open to USC students of all majors, and films can be no longer than 10 minutes. The winners are chosen by a panel of judges that include faculty from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, filmmakers, and genocide experts.

Winning filmmakers receive a cash prize and have their film screened publicly.

Each year, different themes are provided to help guide students’ projects. Past themes include “Preserving Humanity: Assistance and Resistance” and “Renewing Rwanda: The Genocide and After.”

In 2015, the contest was restructured to provide more guidance for students. Now, the contest is hosted in IWitness as an IWitness activity. This means students can use IWitness’s free built-in video editor, WeVideo, to edit their projects, and also curate clips from IWitness’s collection of 1,500 testimonies from the Visual History Archive.

Students with a higher skill set are still able to create their videos outside of IWitness using any other video editing software they prefer. But giving students the option of using IWitness will simplify the contest for those without much video editing experience.

In 2015, the contest was headed up by DEFY, USC Shoah Foundation’s student association.

The submission period in 2015 ran from January to mid-March. Check back for more info on the next contest.