Students gathered in the Cox Auditorium Tuesday night for "Young Voices on Today's Politics" to view the winning short documentaries submitted to the Free Range Video Contest: Politics Now Competition, sponsored by Hodges Library and the Baker Center.

UT students created all of the eight short films as a part of Jennifer Fishman's English rhetoric class, Stephen Dandaneau's honors seminar, and as submissions to the competition.

The films ranged in topic from absurdist commentary on the nature of political slam ads as seen in the winning documentary "Pizza Pie, Oh My!" by William Scott Murphy, to a social call to action in "UT not Talking About the Iraq War," made by sophomore Amien Essif.

"Since the war started it's been a particularly weighty issue for me," Essif said on the inspiration behind his documentary. "I've been disheartened to see the war ignored in the public sphere."

A few of the short films, such as "Sudoku, Crossword and the Crime Log" and "Politics Now," deal with the issue of student participation in politics, while others like "Our Voice, Our Vote" debate what it means to be a citizen.

You don't think about how little people at UT think about politics.-Brian Grant, UT freshman After the documentaries were screened, Mark Harmon, a journalism associate professor, led a lively discussion on young people and politics. The dialogue between Harmon and the students in attendance covered a wide variety of topics like media's influence over voters and how third parties sway elections.

When Harmon posed the question of why people ages 18 to 34 seem apathetic toward voting and the political process in general, the students in the discussion had varied opinions on the topic.

"When you don't see that much of a difference between candidates, you don't vote," Essif said on the generic nature of some political candidates.

UT student Gavin Luter, who was interviewed in "UT not Talking About the Iraq War," said, "Young people just don't care about politics."

Not all students present were directly involved with the making of a documentary. Freshman Brian Grant attended at the advice of his political science professor but still found the discussion useful.

"The discussion was informative and got people thinking," Grant said. "You don't think about how little people at UT think about politics."

Essif had a more optimistic outlook on the topics discussed.

"Dandaneau's class was about how people don't get together and talk about these issues, but this discussion was evidence to the contrary."