BYU’s Motion Picture Archive premiered the student film "Shades of Difference" as part of the restoration series in the Harold B. Lee Library’s Reynolds Auditorium on Feb. 21.
The film allowed students to experience the 1972 Mormon Festival of Arts, showcasing campus life through faith-inspired art and music from the 1970s. It was originally intended for presentation at the 1973 festival.
Ben Harry, a projectionist at the BYU Library, hosted the premiere and introduced the film by explaining the purpose behind the archive series.
“We are here to share forgotten treasures from the film archive,” Harry said.
He explained that this film is the first in the series to celebrate the last 50 years of BYU and campus life.
Harry also noted that restoring this film — and most in the series — would not have been possible without help from the Church History Library in Salt Lake City.
“The first element in a film restoration is access to the best materials, and the second is the time-consuming, yet gratifying, process of reconstructing the film from these elemental pieces,” Harry said.
He then introduced Beth Nielsen, a BYU senior who primarily worked on restoring the film from the Church archive.
Nielsen briefly outlined the restoration process and presented exclusive pictures and records she found from the festival.
“Restoration is what you came here to see, but I learned so much from this film that it inspired me to do additional research,” Nielsen said as she flipped through slides detailing her work. She focused particularly on the method of color correction that was used to modernize 1970s technology for a 2025 audience.
Nielsen shared that she felt a deep personal connection to this project because of what the festival represented.
“The festival ran from 1968 to 1976 and celebrated the unique Mormon culture. Members explored how their faith inspired them in creating art, writing, dance and music,” she said.
The audience itself reflected the theme of restoration. Former BYU alumni attended to reminisce about their time on campus, while current students came to learn what campus life was like in the 1970s.
“I thought the film was super interesting,” Calvin Christensen, a BYU student who attended the screening, said.
“It’s crazy how campus and students were both different and the same back then. The art in the film was also really inspiring, seeing how they connected with God to create their work. I loved it,” Christensen said.
This restoration series is part of BYU's Motion Picture archive and sponsored by the L. Tom Perry Special Collections. It offers free screenings in the BYU Library auditorium, focusing on restoring and reviving old films from the university’s archives.