When Amy Adrion decided to apply to film school, she gave it one
shot.
“I only applied to UCLA,” she said. “I
didn’t apply anywhere else.”
But it wasn’t the Hollywood lifestyle and L.A. skyline
that first beckoned the New Jersey native to make the trip to
Southern California.
“I have always kind of been interested in film,” she
said, before explaining the notable lack of film classes her alma
mater, Georgetown University, had to offer. “But they did
have a screen-writing class, which I loved. And after taking that I
realized I wanted to give (film) a try.”
After approaching a fellow alumnus with her filmmaking
aspirations, Adrion eventually moved to Boston, where she first
assisted, unpaid and then paid, with various independent films. She
then worked several years in New York for First Run Features in
acquisitions and sales.
“(First Run) was fun and a good company with a great group
of people, but I realized what I really wanted was to make
films,” Adrion said.
Now a third-year graduate student in film directing, Adrion is
thriving. And though she considers herself fairly inexperienced,
her first film was recently accepted into the prestigious Tribeca
Film Festival in New York City.
“I almost didn’t submit to Tribeca because it is
such a big festival and the film has certainly already been
rejected from lesser festivals. So when I got a call about a month
ago, I was very surprised and very excited,” she said.
“Surviving 7th Grade,” a seven-minute film written,
directed, produced and edited by Adrion is one of only 100 shorts
selected for the fifth annual festival.
Tribeca was founded by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro in an
attempt to increase accessibility of the film festival experience
for the general public.
The festival has attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers
every year and boasts juried narrative, documentary and short film
competitions, a Restored Classics series, a Best of New York series
curated by Martin Scorsese, and numerous panel discussions. Since
its conception, Tribeca has also premiered such studio films as
“Star Wars: Episode II ““ Attack of the Clones”
and “About a Boy.”
Adrion greatly enjoyed the big-city opportunities of the
festival experience, which began April 25 and culminated with an
awards ceremony on Sunday.
Besides meeting De Niro and attending an eventful luncheon for
woman filmmakers, she felt privileged to see her
“small” film on a screen as large and prestigious as
the AMC in Manhattan ““ multiple times.
“It is just shocking that a film so humble in its origins
has gone so far. The film is certainly worthy,” said David
Harris, assistant director of “Surviving 7th Grade” and
director of photography on Adrion’s next short.
According to Tribeca Programming Manager and Shorts Programmer
Maggie Kim, more than 2,300 American and international shorts
competed for spots in the various categories, including the main
shorts programs, avant-garde and the Tribeca Family Festival, for
which “Surviving 7th Grade” was selected.
“We score submissions based on idea, production value,
cinematography, acting and characterization if it is a narrative.
Any one of those qualities can make a short stand out,” Kim
said.
A story of two seventh-grade girls who are confronted and then
overcome by unexpected emotional obstacles, “Surviving 7th
Grade” gathers its strength from powerful performances by
child actors and its universal exploration of the simultaneous
awkwardness and strength of adolescence.
“The film captures the resiliency of the human spirit and
the bonds of friendship. (Audiences) respond to the authenticity of
the kids. They always comment on … how (the film) captures that
moment of growing up. People say it is very familiar ““ that
feeling of helplessness, that universal experience of
humiliation,” Adrion said.
“The film is not polished ““ it has pretty rough
edges at certain points. It’s very homemade, but it has a lot
of heart to it.”
Though the performances Adrion drew from her actors ground the
film, she recalls the difficulty in casting the child actors.
“I saw a lot of L.A. child actors. Some were cute, but
they didn’t really have what I was looking for. I wanted
interesting, kind of awkward, but authentic kids who had real
spirit about them,” she said.
Adrion ultimately cast Melissa Umana, picked out of a local
junior high after-school program, to take the lead role. The film
is her first, and Adrion also cast her cousin as the antagonist in
the film.
Filmed within the four-day constraint for first-year
graduates’ films, Adrion shot at a Venice park and at a
friend’s home in Silverlake. But according to Harris the film
still manages to capture Adrion’s native East Coast feel.
“Not only are you having the experience of junior high,
but the film also seems to be capturing the way Amy went through
junior high,” he said.
“Amy’s directing style is deceptively simple. She is
a very laid-back person, quiet on set, contemplative. (The film)
kind of seems to just happen by itself. But then you see what comes
out of it, and it’s so very Amy.”
And though Adrion has returned to the East Coast for four
screenings of her film and a whirlwind of opportunity at Tribeca
““ which allowed her to share her work with close friends and
family back home, as well as showcase her work to top-tier studios
““ the West has become near and dear to the rising
filmmaker’s heart.
After the festival, she will return to Los Angeles for
post-production work on her second short, “The Home of the
Split Pea Soup,” and to write her thesis project, titled
“Shoegazer.”
“I think the East Coast has a very negative view of Los
Angeles,” she said in a previous interview with The Bruin.
“But L.A. is a beautiful city, and really exciting for film.
It’s a town of dreamers and of people that want to make
something they care about happen.”