A haphazard cluster of public housing in Multnomah County, Vanport, Ore., was constructed in 1943 to house the Portland area’s shipyard workers. Five years later, the city of 40,000 was destroyed when 200 feet of a Columbia River dike collapsed, leaving Vanport under water and its residents homeless.
Vanport is the subject of University student Rebecca Purice’s film, “Vanport: Oregon’s Lost City,” which was nominated for a National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences college student Emmy. Purice will also be submitting the film to the Eighth Annual Student Film Festival.
Put on by the National Broadcasting Society, the films will be screened next Friday, June 13 in 100 Willamette Hall. The event, which begins at 7 p.m., has no admission fee, though there is a suggested donation of $1.
“We do it the day before graduation because a lot of parents are in town,” Purice said. “This is a way for people to show their parents what they’ve been up to.”
The film festival is open to University students, who will compete for prizes in categories such as documentary, dramatic short, music video, hard news, advertisement, public service announcement, evergreen, animated and experimental.
While Purice is a member of NBS, she is still eligible to compete because the judges – who include journalism faculty members Rebecca Force, Al Stavitsky and Erik Talbert – are unaffiliated and impartial.
“I think a lot of times – especially on campus, at least in my experience – people are not aware of students’ talents,” Purice said.
All entries must be submitted on data DVDs or CDs before 5 p.m. on Friday, June 6. For more information on submission guidelines, e-mail the National Broadcasting Society at [email protected].
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