No brackets were involved, but that didn’t diminish Mike Gentile and Mike Novelli’s enthusiasm about making an elite eight.

The duo created one of eight films which will debut this week at the third annual Reality Bytes film festival at NIU.

The festival will be from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Friday in the Holmes Student Center’s Diversions Lounge. NIU alumnus Bill Weinman, a sound editor for more than 35 feature films, including “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Fugitive,” will serve as a judge.

“Killing in the name of?” is a documentary about the quest for understanding how people throughout history have used religious teachings to promote violence, aggression and even murder.

In the film, Gentile, an NIU alumnus, and Novelli, a senior communication major, talk to a philosophy of religion professor and experts in Christianity, Judaism and Islam in order to get their takes on killing and violence done in the name of God.

“Our film is not meant to be a lesson in history but rather a social critique,” Gentile said. “I think it is important that we keep up dialogue to prevent or better understand these interpretations of religion.”

Assistant communication professor Laura Vazquez started Reality Bytes three years ago so students like Gentile and Novelli would have a venue where they could show their work.

“We are trying to build a national name for our program,” she said. “I want people to know that [NIU] is the place where students can come and create a film without having a lot of money or having to know George Lucas. We want to fill that niche.”

Novelli said he enjoys the fact other universities are taking part in this year’s festival. He has even heard some early buzz about one of the films.

“I heard ‘The Adventures of Mad Matt’ [from the University of Texas] has won a bunch of awards at festivals,” he said. “Also, the films in the festival from NIU students I have seen are really good, so it will definitely be tough competition.”

Vazquez said bringing in outside competition is the natural progression of the festival.

“We are at the point where almost half of the entries we get are from other universities,” Vazquez said. “I wanted to raise the bar here with my students and have other universities take part in the festival to create more competition.”

Novelli said he is confident of his film’s chances and is proud of how it affects viewers.

“I hope this film helps people think about how we treat other people; it is more about humanity and morals than religion,” Novelli said. “It transcends religion and gives people something to talk about.”