Filmmakers such as Ron Howard, Randall Wallace and Tom Shadyac show support for the festival, which took place during the weekend.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
Last week, Pepperdine University film students staged a first-of-its-kind, entirely student-run, film festival entitled REELSTORIES Film Fest 2010. The festival, showcasing short and feature-length documentary films made by students, was as much about the power of storytelling as it was about using the medium as a message; in this case, about effecting change in society.
Katie Stjernholm, one of the festival directors, pronounced Friday evening’s event “an unqualified success.”
“Both our venues were absolutely full,” Stjernholm said breathlessly. “Over 900 people attended and there were cheers and tears from everyone. It just went flawlessly.”
Inclement weather threatened the event, but seemed not to deter an audience that packed the two screening venues, Elkins Auditorium and Smothers Theatre. The schedule moved briskly with the student showcase of short films preceding each feature documentary, “Red Gold” and “The Human Experience,” followed by a question and answer session with filmmakers.
The films were juried by a panel of judges well known in the film industry, including Jonah Nolan, who cowrote “The Prestige” and “The Dark Knight,” Randall Wallace, who wrote “Braveheart” and “The Man in the Iron Mask” (and who teaches screenwriting at Pepperdine), Tom Shadyac, who directed “Bruce Almighty” and “Patch Adams” and Roko Belic, whose directorial debut, “Genghis Blues,” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2000.
“I was stunned to see how successfully the student organizers pulled this off,” Belic said. “It was a testament to them and to the filmmakers that they picked the right films to screen because there was so much heartfelt integrity onscreen, it was truly inspiring. There was a connection between the filmmakers and their audience that was just palpable.”
Also on hand to inspire the youthful crowd were directors Ron Howard (“Angels and Demons” and “Frost/Nixon” are but a few of the many movies the actor/writer/producer has directed) and Micky Moore (who worked in silent film as a child), and producer Scott Mednick (“300,” and “Where the Wild Things Are”).
Central to the theme of the festival was the search for meaning and value in life, embodied in the award-winning documentary feature “The Human Experience,” about a band of young men whose world travel, meeting with the homeless and dispossessed both humbles and elevates them.
The other documentary feature screened, “Red Gold,” is about the world’s largest salmon run in Alaska’s Bristol Bay and how mining interests threaten to destroy an ancient way of life for Alaska’s commercial fishermen and native peoples.
“What was so great about all the films was this take-home message that said, ‘I don’t have to settle for a mainstream consumer culture,’” Belic said. “I can make my own rules and create something that’s not just in my head but in my heart.’ The theater was vibrating with this energy.”
Film production major JJ Starr’s documentary, “Awaken Honduras,” received the Grand Prize Selection and the REEL Cause Award. The nine-minute film is about a church group working with poor children who live at a trash dump in order to scavenge. Shot two summers ago when he traveled to the Central American country, Starr said the church’s ministry was “brilliant.”
“They raise money to pay the parents a day’s wages so the kids can go to school, instead of having to scavenge to help their family eat,” Starr said. “It’s a story that kind of found me.”
Starr has already begun production on the next film that found him, about an organization in Africa that builds ovens out of local materials to bake bread.
“This kind of story really speaks to our generation’s desire to change the world,” Starr said. “These are the kinds of stories I want to film.”
Jeff Loveness’ film, “Tutor,” won the Audience Choice Award. He shot and edited his six-minute film in one day, using the film department’s EX1 high definition camera.
“It’s about a history tutor who uses his imagination to brighten his tedious and thankless job,” Loveness, a junior in film studies, said.
Loveness is a contributing writer to the satirical Web site “The Onion” and is an officially sponsored YouTube partner, having accumulated more than one million views for his sketch comedy videos. But he is under no illusions about his chosen career.
“I’m determined to work as hard as I possibly can,” Loveness said. “But it’s difficult to accomplish.”
Austin Chapman is a junior majoring in creative writing whose short film, “At the Altar,” won the award for Excellence in Cinematography. He credits the look of his film to a Canon 5D Mark II digital camera and “some used lenses from eBay.” His lighting system was comprised of some eight-dollar bulbs from Home Depot, with cutout cardboard shields taped around them to make the light more directional.
His five-minute movie is told in flashback, about a boy who will be executed and what led him to that moment.
“I created this filmŠto leave the audience with their own interpretations of the story,” Chapman said, who is writing his fourth screenplay and hopes to produce it next year.
Stjernholm said the success of this year’s festival augurs well for future student festival directors.
“It was all very organic in how it came about,” Stjernholm said. “And there was such heart. I think everyone realized the power of film in telling stories.”
More information can be obtained online at www.reelstoriesfilmfest.com