While student filmmakers may manage to make critical splashes early on in their cinematic careers, finding wide exposure is unfortunately another story entirely.
Student films are not often screened to the public, and this is precisely why Los Angeles’ PBS station, KCET, is televising its “Fine Cut” series.
KCET’s 11th annual “Fine Cut” series, which airs every Saturday in the month of April on KCET at 10 p.m., features the work of student and alumni filmmakers from various colleges in Southern California. Three of the 17 films chosen this year were directed by UCLA film students. The other participating schools include USC, Loyola Marymount, California Institute of the Arts, Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Chico.
Every year the series is made possible by the nonprofit Bridges/Larson Foundation, which supports programs that encourage new generations of filmmakers.
Series producer Vicki Curry, who was involved in the selection of the films, explained that while only the work of recent or current students is eligible, they still hold the entries to professional industry standards.
“Essentially we’re looking for what you would look for in any good film,” Curry said. “We pay attention to production value and the technical skills, but at the end of the day the thing that is usually the most compelling is the story or the characters.”
The stories range from documentaries (“If a Body Meets a Body,” which chronicles the L.A. County Coroner’s Office) to comedies (“The Red Ace Cola Project” features a woman trying to break through into the workplace in the 1950s). Genres also include drama, foreign language and animated, and vary in length from 2.5 to 25 minutes.
The diversity of the films is exemplified in the works of the three participating Bruins.
Alumnus Rubén Obregon Casas, whose film “La Primavera” is screening on April 19, studied production at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. The film is about an American Navy sailor spending his last day with a local Chilean girl at port before sailing home, knowing that it is the last they will see of each other.
“The thing that I like … in a film is (when) I remember it beyond two weeks or a week after seeing it. So that’s kind of the storytelling that I’m drawn to,” Casas said. “What I like to tell is something that sort of evokes a response or feeling.”
Casas hopes his film inspires that feeling in the audience.
“I think that’s what art is supposed to be,” he said. “That you can connect with somebody who is isn’t exactly like you, or from the same background as you, but still there is a universal quality to that story that they can relate to.”
UCLA film student Andrés Torres-Vives’ short film, “On Killing,” is also screening immediately after “La Primavera” this Saturday. His film is about an Iraq War veteran dealing with his return from the war. While researching for the film, Torres-Vives interviewed various veterans and their families, who deal with a wide array of obstacles such as post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and maintaining family relationships.
“It seems like people are forgetting about the war already,” he said. “I made the film because I felt that everyone was sort of going about their lives without really thinking about what was going on, what was really happening to people. That’s what the film’s about: everybody coming back here and being here after the experience of being at war.”
Many of Torres-Vives’ films tend to have similar politically charged messages. He is currently planning for a film about immigration that will be shot in Tijuana and San Diego. He doesn’t find that a short film’s length is limiting to its potential impact, so he doesn’t shy away from complex topics.
“A lot of times shorts tend to be very quick and funny and cute, and it’s great,” he said. “But sometimes I think that shorts that deal with tougher issues don’t get as much play.”
Rani DeMuth, who graduated from the UCLA directing program in 2005, wrote and directed her film “The Double,” which screened as the first film of the series on April 5. The film, which stars big names such as Eric Roberts and Shannyn Sossamon, has won numerous awards and screened at various festivals, most recently she won the LACMA Young Directors Award.
The film is a drama about a self-assured psychologist who undergoes a sort of awakening during a near-death experience aboard an airplane.
“I often work from my dreams, and this idea did come from a powerful dream I had,” DeMuth said. “I’m definitely drawn to mysteries ““ the mysteries of the universe, things that can’t be explained. And thematically I think I deal with this theme a lot: “˜Do unto others how you would have done to you’ ““ just how we are all connected and how everything we do affects everyone else.”
Similarly to how DeMuth tries to show the connections in society in her film, the “Fine Cut” series gives up-and-coming filmmakers the chance to connect with new viewers by showing their films to public audiences that would not otherwise attend film festivals.
“Most people do not frequent short film festivals. It’s just a fact. People watch TV; they don’t go to short film festivals,” she said. “So it’s kind of cool to think that somebody who just happens to be flipping through channels could land on my film or someone else’s short film. That, I think, is the coolest thing about it: People that wouldn’t normally see this kind of work could see it on TV.”