Although “Escape Velocity,” a film made by ISU students, probably won’t play in local multiplexes any time soon, it is still making the rounds at one local film festival.

The film, written and directed by Dan Mundt, graduate student and lecturer in journalism and mass communication, is one of two films entered in the First Annual Wild Rose Film Festival in Des Moines.

The Wild Rose Film Festival, which gets its name from the state flower of Iowa, starts Wednesday. The Vaudeville Mews, 212 4th St., in Des Moines, is hosting the event.

Mundt says he is proud of his work but is always looking for ways to make it better.

“A year after the original premiere of the film, I looked at it again and decided I could make it better,” Mundt says. “Having seen it for the last year, there were a lot of things that bugged me about the original edit.

“I thought, ‘Well geez, if I just spent some time on it, I could fix it.'”

In the new version, Mundt says he has changed many things within the film.

“The story is still the same, so the changes were all technical,” he says.

“I’ve gone in to some scenes and cleaned them up a bit to better showcase the performances in those scenes.”

“Escape Velocity” isn’t the only film by Iowa State filmmakers featured at the festival. There’s also a 30-minute short-subject film, “Damaged.”

“[‘Damaged’] is kind of a ‘Twilight Zone’ kind of story,” he says. “It’s presented in a very strange way, meaning it’s very moody and atmospheric.”

“Damaged” was also entered in the short-subject film category last weekend at Shriek Fest, a festival in Los Angeles that honors horror films.

Mundt isn’t the only filmmaker involved with “Damaged” who is excited about it being featured.

ISU alumna Aimee Schulz, producer of “Damaged,” says working on a science-fiction film can be fun and challenging at the same time.

“When you work on an independent film, you wear many hats,” Schulz says. “I produced ‘Damaged,’ but I also worked on costuming, too.”

Mundt says when making an independent film, teamwork is everything.

“If you don’t have a good crew, a project goes nowhere,” Mundt says. “The crews that worked on the two films were very different, but they were both talented.”

Mundt says being at Iowa State was a big plus for how the films were made because of student participation. In fact, the project may not have even gotten started without a student.

“A student of mine named Jeff Lockhart, who is a [Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication] graduate, said, ‘You should do a project this summer,'” Mundt says. “I kept putting Jeff off and putting him off. He was persistent though, so I drug out an idea for him to look at. That idea eventually became ‘Escape Velocity.”

Even getting films into the film festivals can be tough, Mundt says.

“You definitely can spend a lot of money. You really have to target the festivals that you think you can get into. All films are not a good fit for every festival.”

Mundt says while he is very proud of “Escape Velocity,” he’d like to find a way to do it again. This time, he’d like to have a much larger budget.

“There only so many things you can do with a $7,000 budget,” Mundt says.

“If we did hit it big and did it at someplace like DreamWorks, it would probably be a $50 to 80 million film.

“Hey, we can dream, can’t we?”