Tonight, fame, glory, prizes and coast to coast bragging rights will be bestowed upon the best films submitted to the Campus Events Commission’s 16th annual Shorttakes Student Film Festival.
This year the festival received more than 75 submissions from across the country, and 15 films will be shown tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Ackerman Grand Ballroom. Prizes will be awarded for Best in Show, Best Live Action and Best Animation/Digital Media. The films will be judged by a panel of 10 film industry professionals, including Andrew J. Cohen, who produced the “40-Year-Old Virgin,” and Paul Schrader, the writer of “Taxi Driver.”
“The panel of judges is very impressive,” said Emily Brundige, a first-year masters of fine arts student in experimental animation at CalArts. “The idea of Paul Schrader seeing “˜Pubertina’ makes me laugh.”
Brundige’s submission, a two-and-a-half minute animated film called “Pubertina,” is one of the festival’s five animation finalists. The film follows the trials and tribulations of a young girl, Pubertina, as she goes through puberty.
The filmmaker’s personal experiences of going through puberty were what inspired her to tackle this subject, which is both personal and accessible, Brundige said.
“It’s also a slap in the face to men and boys,” Brundige said. “It gives them unwanted insight into girls’ lives. A lot of guys cringe at certain parts.”
Not all of the festivals films explore an issue. Many filmmakers made films that are purely for laughs and the viewer’s entertainment.
“I’m definitely not a “˜message’ kind of guy. It’s a comedy. I tried to make as many jokes as possible,” said Justin Tan, a fourth-year film production student.
The title of Tan’s film, “Karma’s a Bitch,” is a synopsis of the movie. In a world where people are paired with a personified version of their karma, Gary, the film’s protagonist, is stuck with the biggest bitch of them all, Tan said.
Aimee Long, a fifth-year film production student, is another finalist from the film school for her live-action film “Grand Cru,” which follows a young girl’s search for a bottle of wine to save her mother’s job.
“It’s just a story about the lengths we go to to protect the ones we love,” Long said.
The film stars Hailee Steinfeld, a 13-year-old actress who has been cast in the new Coen brothers’ movie “True Grit.”
“I was lucky she walked into my casting,” Long said.
These films, along with 12 others, were judged by CEC for their creativity and originality, style and the quality of their work.
“If someone just had a nice looking film it wasn’t going to get by. It had to be deep in all senses,” said Alex Hyman, a fourth-year psychobiology student and CEC director of film festivals.
It is that depth that might draw someone in the industry toward one of the films screened tonight. For many of the filmmakers, shooting films is a future career path, which makes film festivals that expose student work to the media that much more important.
Alumnus Shane Acker submitted an animated short film titled “9” in the 2005 Shorttakes Student Film Festival and was selected as a finalist. The film caught the attention of Tim Burton, who helped Acker turn it into a feature film last year.
“(It’s) kind of cool how it all started with a short film in Shorttakes,” Hyman said.