HiveFest: Ogden’s International Film Festival is set to return for its third year on Oct. 2 at the Allred Theater in Weber State University’s Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with films beginning at 7 p.m.

Hive Fest Ops & Outreach Coordinator Dustin Bessire told the Standard-Examiner on Wednesday that the festival has seen a lot of growth since its inception with some big goals.

HiveFest was a small film festival put together by a group of students in a student club, and over the last two years, it has grown to take on community partners and sponsors,” he said. “It’s not only ran by students, but we’ve brought in working film professionals and film editors with this end goal of — starting next year — incorporating HiveFest into the curriculum of Weber State and give film and digital media students the opportunity to both run a festival, see what it looks like from the festival side of things, and help teach them and educate them about running film through a festival process.”

He said the festival started very humbly.

“The first year was very small,” he said. “It was surprisingly well-attended for no outreach or any sort of advertising. It was definitely a community fair, a passion thing from this group of probably, I don’t know, seven or eight film students, digital media students.”

Bessire said he even submitted a film of his own that first year, and it helped keep the festival going into the future.

“We were in this really historic theater here in Ogden,” he said. “We were playing national films, but here was my very technically challenged film, screening alongside all these other really fantastic films. And the reason I mention all this is that’s kind of what kept the festival going — I won an audience choice award for my film. I actually met my business partner there who won the Best of Fest award, and afterwards, he and I were both talking about how it felt like this great experience.”

He said that the festival doubled in size the next year, attracting around 300 people.

“There were these first-time student filmmakers — 18, 19 years old — and they were up there receiving awards alongside these established voices and a lot of networking and whatnot afterwards,” he said. “It’s been great.”

For 2026, Bessire noted that the festival has seen around 200 films entered and that 18 will be shown during the viewing evening next Friday.

He said that one major lesson has stood out from the first two HiveFests.

“The moment you’re done with this year’s festival, you have to begin organizing the next year’s,” he said. “Honestly, I’ve learned a lot from Orem Film Festival and ZepFEST, in particular the Utah Film Festival, the way that they run and engage with their filmmakers.”

Bessire said that while having the public attend, it’s ultimately the filmmakers themselves that really make a film festival shine.

“We want people to attend,” he said. “Obviously, we’d like to raise money for the next festival. But, ultimately, it’s about the filmmakers. And I think that’s the thing that just keeps getting clearer for me every year is, ‘How do we really make filmmakers feel special? How do we program blocks of films that are in line with our mission and represent established voices, but also filmmakers that may not get a chance at larger regional festivals?'”

He said the HiveFest goal remains the same this year.

“We’re focused on the first-time and student filmmakers,” he said. “Give them a platform alongside emerging voices.”

For more information on HiveFest: Ogden’s International Film Festival, visit https://filmfreeway.com/HiveFest/.