Independent, low-budget film “Dindin” came to Occidental College in a screening jointly hosted by the Media Arts & Culture (MAC) and Theater & Performance Studies departments. Director, guest professor and Eagle Rock resident Brendan Hughes presented his first feature film for the Occidental community Feb. 7 in Choi Auditorium.
“Dindin” is a screen adaptation of the Harbor Stage Company’s play by the same name, written by co-founding member Brenda Withers. Starring real-life couples Stacy Fisher, Robert Kropf, Jonathan Fielding and Withers, the film is about an intimate dinner party gone wrong.
According to MAC department chair Broderick Fox, the department often showcases work produced by members of the Occidental community and leverages the college’s connection to creatives in LA.
“[Hughes] reached out to me and also to Professor [Sarah] Kozinn, the chair of Theater & Performance Studies, about possibly putting together a public screening,” Fox said. “Which we were really excited for on a number of registers.”
The departments have hosted a number of screenings and Q&A sessions with filmmakers in the past, including movies like “Body Parts”, “Let’s Meet Halfway” and the FilAm Creative Film Festival. MAC professor John Trafton said that the college hosts these events to expose students to a wide variety of films, genres and cinematic voices that they might not be able to get at traditional theaters.
“The Occidental community is very much dedicated to hosting these kinds of screenings, not merely for the form of entertainment, but to really foster a lively conversation about what it means to be a visual storyteller in the 21st century,” Trafton said.
Hughes, who has been teaching at Occidental College since 2019, said that he decided to bring his film to the college because of his love for the community and conversation.
“I love the students and I love how hungry their minds are, and I love the conversations we have in class,” Hughes said. “[“Dindin” is] a project that is mercurial in a way, in that it’s hard to pin down what genre it is and what exactly it’s saying. Occidental’s the perfect crucible to bring this into to see what kind of conversations it yields.”
The event began with an introduction from Kozinn, and then Hughes gave away two copies of MURDLE, a murder mystery puzzle book.
Following the film, Hughes shared a presentation detailing the work he put into the film, including a breakdown of the exact budget, the story behind the film and the making of video. He also said students must be persistent while working their way through the industry.
“Create work relentlessly,” Hughes said.
After the presentation, the floor was opened up for questions from the audience. Students asked questions about the process of writing, going from stage to film, filming and post-production editing.
Hughes said that experiencing people watching your works as a director is excruciating, but that the audience was fantastic that night. According to Hughes, he was inspired to share his work with more student audiences after having a friend at Reed College test-screen the film for her class and receiving thoughtful feedback from them.
“I just thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to find more college students to watch this thing.’ I think college is unique because you’re at a moment in life when your brain, at its most capable, is sort of can-opened to all these new ideas,” Hughes said. “College students just teem with glorious attention, they’re like lighthouses.”
Carolina Arap (sophomore) — a Theater & Performance Studies and Comparative Studies in Literature & Culture (CSLC) double major — said she attended the screening because of her desire to know art from multiple angles. According to Arap, Hughes’s presentation was insightful for learning more about the actual logistics of filmmaking.
“Every time you ask a filmmaker about it, they skirt around the edges of the question, they just won’t tell you. It’s almost like a gatekept secret,” Arap said. “I learned so much of how to actually go about making a film and where that funding is supposed to come from, which is something I’ve lacked in the past few years.”
Hui Ji (senior), another Theater & Performance Studies and CSLC student in attendance, said that they were drawn in because they already knew Hughes and wanted to see how a theater director would present a story on film.
“There is something shared in humans that we all care about the same thing, no matter if it’s theater or film or even other kinds of fields of study. We want to see stories,” Ji said. “Our knowledge is organized by narratives, and it’s so fun to see the fluidity of how a story could be told.”
According to Ji, attending the screening showed them the possibilities of what they could do in the future.
“I could possibly do this in the future. I’m in this state of [not knowing] what to do,” Ji said. “But this will work if I go for it and make it happen.”
Contact Wura Ogunnaike at ogunnaike@oxy.edu
