ISFiT 2025: Power or change?
Ahead of the ISFiT president election Wednesday night, two students had announced their candidacy.
The students Aurora Kolstad and Martin Støldal Gjervan have registered their candidacy for ISFIT presidency ahead of the election. The debate between the presidental candidates took place at Studentersamfundet, in Storsalen, at 19:00 Wednesday evening and the vote happened shortly after the debate.
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The powers behind it all
In an interview before the election, Aurora Kolstad, who studies at the Norwegian school of photography and at industrial economics and technology management by NTNU, explains that she wanted to become president in order to work both on and with the big picture of the festival. She explains that she became motivated by all the connections in ISFiT.
– I want the volunteers to feel as warm and welcomed as I felt when I started in ISFiT, Kolstad reminicess.
Her experiences with the festival comes from ISFiT 2021 and ISFiT 2023, working as the head of PR during the latest one. She explains that it was a new position as of that year. She mostly handled press, social media and physical marketing. Kolstad is also promoting the theme «Power» for the festival in 2025.
– By understanding power structures in everyday life and in greater society as a whole, we are able to affect them, she explains.
Want to activate the students
Nursing student Martin Støldal Gjervan said that he wants to be the next ISFiT-president because he didn’t feel done with the festival after being head of the Secretariat during ISFiT 2023, and he thoroughly enjoyed the experience from that festival.
– I was involved with a lot of the internal management of ISFiT, and feel like I know how to improve the dynamic of the organisation as a whole, Gjervan explains.
He said that after he moved to Trondheim in the autumn of 2021, both him and his values changed. Especially after joining ISFiT.
Gjervan promoted his theme «Courage to change», as he felt that more could be acted on after the discussions from ISFiT 2023.
– How do we start the change? Students have taken action for their beliefs before, but how can more students find the courage to change, he mused, and wanted to explore this through the theme.
