Two films by Associate Professor Phil Hastings continue to be screened globally and win awards.
His latest film, “I Dreamed of Things Forbidden and was Afraid,” had its debut at the 2024 Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center members show and then went on to be screened at the Buffalo International Film Festival in October 2024. Mr. Hastings says this film is about the experience of living through a fog of uncertainty and the anxiety that comes from these experiences.
“It is often only after we wake up and become conscious of our situation that we are able to diagnose or react to it,” explained Hastings, a faculty member in the Department of Visual Arts and New Media.
The film has also been presented at the MicroActs Artist Film Screenings event in London, England, and will also be shown at the Almaty Underground Screening Series in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on April 1, and the Big Muddy Film Festival in Carbondale, IL, from March 27 to 29.
There are often times when wrongdoings and self-serving actions need to be called out and cinema has a long history of bringing to light these conditions that cause harm to so many.” - Associate Professor Phil Hastings
Hastings has a long history with the Big Muddy Film Festival. He was the director of the festival while a graduate student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Big Muddy is one of the oldest student-run film festivals in the states and is international in scope, according to Hastings.
The festival has a long history of bringing important and influential jurors and guest artists to share their expertise and discuss the festival's work. It showcases works that are often not part of the mainstream movie going experience.
Hastings went on to note that the Big Muddy Film Festival was used as the blueprint for his creation of the SUNYWide Film Festival that was started in 2009 and ran yearly at Fredonia for five years until he passed it on to the direction to faculty at other SUNY schools.
“I was able to take the skills that I learned, and a broader view of what cinema is, from that experience and apply it to what we created in the SUNYWide Film Festival,” he said.
Hastings went on to share that he appreciates hearing alternative voices and viewpoints and believes that cinema and the arts in general can be a gateway to understanding and empathy as well as a catalyst for action.
“There are often times when wrongdoings and self-serving actions need to be called out and cinema has a long history of bringing to light these conditions that cause harm to so many,” Hastings said.
“With Love and Sincerity” was also screened at the 2025 UK Animation & Music Video Festival on Feb. 7 where it won Silver in the Experimental Animation category. Hastings says that he is encouraged that his work resonates with those who need to hear that abusive relationships of any kind are detrimental to those who are victims of unchecked and cruel use of power.
“I hope that others may come away from watching my work with a renewed sense of power and self-worth,” Hastings added.
