Barbara Bird loves home movies.

She loves them so much that the assistant professor of communications makes a living out of directing them and teaching others about them.

Because of that love, Penn State has its very own award-winning filmmaker.

Bird's documentary Album won second prize in the documentary category at the 2002 Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films early last month.

The eighth annual festival, which features films less than 40 minutes, took place Aug. 6 to 12 at the Camelot Theatre in Palm Springs, Calif.

This year the world-renowned festival received 1,356 entries, 292 of which were screened at the festival.

Pat Perry, the festival's film creditation manager, said that programmers, who view all the films, place them into a program. The programs each have a separate theme and are about 90 minutes in length, she said.

Bird's film was placed in a program titled "Fathers and Sons and Mothers and Daughters," which followed the theme of families.

This is exactly the theme that Album follows. Bird described Album as a compilation of 8 mm film from her family's archive from 1945 to 1956.

"Basically, I edited it to tell the story of my parent's marriage," Bird said.

Pictures of Bird's family are shown during the film, while recent interviews of her family members are played.

"Because the movies are so old, it's almost like time-travel," she said.

Bird said she was able to set up artificial dialogue between her family members because she interviewed them separately but questioned them on the same topics.

Bird, whose parents were divorced, said her documentary looks at the fantasy version of what happened rather than what really occurred.

"It shows that truth can be stranger than fiction," she said. "It touches on something in America in that time and place."

Album features footage that was directed by Bird's father, who she said was an excellent filmmaker, though his work was only home movies.

Bird's father died one month after seeing the rough cut of her work.

"He is one of the reasons I ended up going to film school, because of the experiences I had early on," she said.

Bird earned a master's degree in fine arts from Northwestern University in 1989, and she teaches Communications 437 (Narrative Film), Communications 445 (Directing II), and Communications 346 (Screenwriting I).

Though Bird could not attend the festival, she was highly honored to be one of 21 filmmakers awarded.

Perry said Bird's documentary was very well received by the audience at the festival.

"I think what students should take from this is the fact that amateur film has a place in filmmaking," Bird said. "It's important for students to know things that aren't big budget have something to say. It doesn't have to be long, expensive, complicated or powerful to touch people."

This is not Bird's first experience with prestigious film festivals.

Her film Handmaidens, which looks at exploitation in the nursing profession, was shown at several other film festivals, including Women in the Director's Chair in Chicago, Silver State Documentary Film Festival at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and a festival at the American Film Institute in California.

After four years of work and a budget between $4,000 and $5,000, Bird was satisfied with the end result of Album.

"It's the end of the process, I made the piece and had something to say," she said. "Strangers got the message, and that's what we do it for."

Students interested in seeing Album might get a chance at the end of the semester. Bird said that, because of the award, there might be a screening of it on campus.