During the Penn State Film Festival last night, student filmmakers saw their films on the big screen for the first time.

Seventeen of the 54 films submitted were shown to a full-house audience of 900 in Schwab Auditorium.

The Penn State Film Festival may be the first forum for student filmmakers to show their work, but for some it will not be their last.

Cindy Rago (senior-film and video) will travel with fellow Penn State students Anna Martemucci (sophomore-communications) and Jennifer Schwartz (senior-film and video) to the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 13.

All three will have their films shown at a student screening at Cannes.

The group will stay in Cannes for 16 days. They were three of 30 students picked to travel to Cannes to have their films shown in the festival. The three entered a contest online, which included partial scholarships for their trip.

Besides having their films shown during Cannes, they all will receive passes to all of the screenings at the festival.

"The whole experience just seems too good to be true," Martemucci said.

Rago's, Schwartz's, and Martemucci's film, titled Born to Run, is a 19-minute comedy, which was written by Martemucci, who plans on continuing with a career in screenwriting.

The film tells the story of Annette, an introvert, who has an obsession with Bruce Springsteen. When Vincent, a psuedo-Bruce look alike joins one of her classes, she is inspired to join a gym. Her determination and style sense is at first unsettling. However, eventually her persistent nature wins over everybody at the gym including Vincent.

"It's a great story because it is something that's different; it's not a cheesy love story," Rago said.

Rago directed the film and said it was a lot easier to use a screenplay that she didn't write because she didn't get hung up on the material.

Rago said she would use the festival to gage the audience reaction to her film."I hope people laugh at the right parts," she said.

Still, she said having her film in the festival will be nerve-racking. "It's not only my film, but it's me up there too."

Rago plays Annette and while shooting the film she spent six days at Bodyworks on a treadmill.

The film's soundtrack includes numerous Springsteen songs. Rago said the die-hard Springsteen fan in the group is Martemucci. "I have to admit that I never disliked him, but I was never a fan," Rago said. "But now, after having to sit in the editing room and listen to him for the last three months, he's grown on me."

Martemucci said, "I don't know when the obsession started; it wasn't even his music at first."

Then Martemucci said she went to her first Springsteen concert in Pittsburgh three years ago and the obsession became a joke among her family and friends.

"The screenplay is me making fun of myself," Martemucci said.

Ryan Miller (senior-film and video) had his documentary Social Intercourse featured in the CAN Film Festival last year. Miller was the cinematographer and one of the directors for the film. His fellow directors were Jeffrey Sheller (senior-film and video) and Jareth Costello (graduate-film and video).

After his film received a positive reception at last year's CAN Film Festival, Miller said he posted his film on ifilm.com. Miller, who describes his film as a documentary on flirtation and social interactions, said his film's racy title has contributed to its success on iFilm.

Social Intercourse was filmed in the fall of 2000 in the early morning hours over a few weekends in Beaver Canyon. The film comprises on-the-street interviews with Penn State students.

"It's manipulated the way reality TV is," Miller said, referring to the post-production and editing of his film.

Social Intercourse was recently selected to tour in The International Festival Of Cinema And Technology, which showcases films that were made using digital media. The tour will visit Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Paris and London.

Miller said having his film in the CAN film festival gave him the confidence to pursue other festivals.

This year, Miller was the cinematographer for a film in the Penn State Film Festival. Patch, an experimental film, is a non-dialogue driven fairy tale-esque short involving a decimated pumpkin patch and the sole surviving pumpkin.