Iridescent Films is a lost dream given new life: in 2021, a group of eager, ambitious students at UW-Madison were taking a film production class while quarantined during Covid-19.

In an effort to not let a global pandemic hamper their desire to create, they donned masks, applied sickening amounts of hand sanitizer and adopted the name Iridescent. They worked for weeks, and over the course of a single 15 hour night, they shot an 8 minute short film in the parking lot of a closed movie theater.

Unsurprisingly, the film was never released. It found its home among countless other short, student films in post-production hell. While the students lost sight of the finish line, their lofty ideals haven't faded.

Here I stand, reviving the name and the mission of those naive students: excellence in collaboration, dedication, and the pursuit of creating joy through art. While we all have gone our separate ways, I feel that that simple memory of a handful of green film students motivates all to create new, exciting and spectacular things that deserve to be seen the world over.

Benjamin Cooper

Iridescent Films