Author: Ben Dalgetty
Oxy’s Fifth Annual Film Festival opened before a nearly full room in Johnson 200 with a crowd of students, faculty and guests Wednesday, Feb. 27. A total of nine student-directed and -produced films were screened, but “there were a number of films that were entered but not shown,” Moana Casanova (senior) said. Casanova, who was central in organizing the festival as well the director of one film, said there were a number of categories in determining a film’s eligibility, including the length, lack of audio-visual issues and varied talent as well as content.
This year’s festival marked the first time that the films were judged and prizes given out-in previous years, the festival has simply consisted of a screening of student work. The judges panel consisted of two alumni-the co-creator of Lonelygirl15, Mesh Flinders ’03, and TV Executive Jeff Grosvenor ’04. They were joined by Art History and Visual Arts Professors Katie Mills and Paul Reinsch as well as Digital Production Manager for the department Kjell Hilding.
A tie for first and second place was awarded to Jeven Dovey (sophomore) and Michael Covino (senior), with third place going to Eli Sasich (senior). “All of the votes were weighted. The outcome was that the top scores were the same,” Casanova said in response to questions on the sharing of first and second place. The prizes split between first and second were two DVD box sets, one of Martin Scorsese films and one of Coen Brothers films as well as noise canceling headphones or tickets to the Arclight Cinema in Hollywood. Third place received an American Gangster DVD and passes to the Laemmle Theater.
Dovey’s film, Falling, centered around a girl’s struggle to maintain sanity as her world crumbled around her. Covino’s film, One Night Stand, was a little unclear in the beginning, but builds around the idea that age is only a relative term that depends on our perspective.
“This film is saying that there’s nothing wrong with still looking at the world the way you did when you were younger,” Covino said.
Sasich’s film, The Last Spin, showed two mysterious Prohibition-era gangsters meeting to play Russian Roulette to settle some score ultimately beyond them.
The festival also featured a number of less serious films, including the fictional Creatacious Park IV, by Keogh Ruotolo (senior), which chronicled a scientist’s mad quest to clone dinosaurs and use students as lab rats. The film, which spanned the use of ecstasy that had been confiscated by Campus Safety as a student aphrodisiac, incestuous make-out sessions, testicular cancer (the festival was during Cancer Awareness Month) and the almost obligatory Blair Witch imitation received widespread audience applause and was a delightfully humorous film to open the festival.
Bookending the festival was Dependence Day by Harry Walling (junior) and Miles Painter (sophomore), which showcased the struggle of three college students to fulfill the ultimate ideal of drunkenness. In what can only be described as the triumphant return of silent film, three Oxy students find themselves with an untappable keg and run the gamut of blunt objects and explosives in their quest to drink.
“[All the films were] produced in courses I taught, and I’m proud of all the students,” Professor Broderick Fox, who received special thanks from every film and the festival as a whole, said. “My involvement ended there. The film fest was entirely student organized and run.” There were some slight technical difficulties during the 7 p.m. screening, but “one of the great areas of helplessness for a filmmaker is to have their work be at the mercy of many extenuating factors when screened in a new place or context,” Fox said.
On the whole, the organizers and judges were pleased with the outcome of the festival and are looking forward to next year’s. “I was pleased to note the amount of collaboration among Occidental students in making these films,” Reinsch said in an email response. “None of the three ‘winning’ films could have been made without the help of a number of other students.” Casanova hopes next year’s festival can attract additional funding for prizes as well as expand the number of films submitted.
“It is my hope that after this year’s festival, [students] will realize that they’ve done some really impressive work and that it is worthy of an audience,” Casanova said. “Hopefully, more people will get their films out there, which is not only great validation for one’s own work, but it’s also a great way to spread the word that Oxy has an impressive film program.”
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