Student-produced sci-fi film receives multiple honors at film festivals

“Do you think it’s possible to build a computer that simulates real life? … If you were living in a simulation, would you be able to tell?” So begins The Goji Project, a short science fiction film produced by students in MACS 480: Advanced Filmmaking last spring. The film has received recognition from three film festivals this fall. 

The Goji Project won Best Sci-Fi from Crown Point International Film Festival in October, which awards films in a monthly competition for filmmakers around the world. It also received an honorable mention for a student film at Art Film Awards, and a certificate of achievement in the Sci-Fi Short category at LA International Film Festival’s Indie Short Fest.

Students produced The Goji Project in the course taught by Victor Font, lecturer in the Department of Media & Cinema Studies, and premiered it at the UIUC Student Film Festival in April. The nearly 23-minute film was written and directed by Lincoln Rogers, then a senior in advertising who graduated in May 2022. 

“The best part of the whole process for me was the connections I made with the other people in the class,” said Rogers, who is now a creative maker at SOCIALDEVIANT, an advertising service in Chicago. “When you’re in go-mode, on the clock, filming, those connections happen really quickly…. And what started as a script that I read to the class over a Zoom meeting became this story that was really meaningful to everybody, that we all got to have a hand in bringing to life.”

Rogers was inspired by a philosophical piece called “The Simulation Argument” by Nick Bostrom: “How likely is it that we are the first real humans, rather than digital copies made by humans far more advanced than us?” Rogers explained. He contemplated how people derive value from their lives and make sense of patterns and coincidences. 

“My favorite scene is the conversation between the two Gojis, when orange-hair Goji says [to blue-hair Goji] that, ‘No matter what the simulation means, it is beautiful.’ The unknowns of the universe can be terrifying, but they came together in this crazy way to create a beautiful world for us.”

As a Media student, Rogers knew he wanted to make movies and said Font “is an amazing professor” and took his Advanced Filmmaking course twice “because it was such a valuable experience.” Rogers is already working on his next film—another sci-fi—"about a man who works at an insurance agency who has an advanced AI assistant implanted in his brain.”

Font created the Advanced Filmmaking course in 2019 but it wasn’t offered in 2020 due to the pandemic. The Department of Media & Cinema Studies has been collaborating with the Department of Theatre in the College of Fine and Applied Arts to recruit student actors for their Advanced Filmmaking course. This fall, Theatre’s Advanced Scriptwriting course will generate the script to be used this spring. The class will also collaborate again with Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, as they did in 2019 with the Department of Theatre to create the short film Red Ball. The MACS course plans to film before spring break and to edit a first draft to present at the 2023 UIUC Student Film Festival.

“More resources lead to more talent, better productions, and more achievements,” Font said about the cross-campus collaboration. He also hopes their recognition by film festivals will attract more students interested in pursuing media and cinema studies as a major and a career. 

“I’m sure this is our first award of a lot and better ones to come,” Font added.

See behind-the-scenes photos from various stages of filming The Goji Project, which used the new production studio in Gregory Hall to hold auditions and the television studio set at Illinois Public Media to construct a dorm room.

Watch The Goji Project:

Film credits: 

• Written and Directed by: Lincoln Rogers (BS ’22, advertising)
• Executive Producer: Victor Font, lecturer of media and cinema studies 
• Original Score: Tony Rogers (Lincoln’s father)
• Director of Photography: Robyn Pease (Class of 2023, media and cinema studies)
• Chief Lighting Technician: Nathan Carlberg (BS ’22, media and cinema studies)
• Starring: Raiya Wen and Ben Mathew (both BFA ’22, theatre/acting, College of Fine and Applied Arts)

—Holly Rushakoff