Audience members may have been initially apprehensive about the quality of the short films at the 20th annual Virginia Student Film Festival held in Newcomb Theater this past weekend, but the calibre of the filmmakers, in particular with some of the narrative and documentary features, was impressive.
“Malibu Jackson” — a hilarious Western satire — was the narrative short kicking off this year’s program. In part due to the befuddled protagonist, this film felt like “Napoleon Dynamite” meets Mr. Bean. Combating the difficulty of effectively establishing humor in films, director Caleb Nelson artfully wove his script, camera directions and film score together to create first-class, tongue-in-cheek entertainment.
Another excellent short was an experimental film titled “Inadvertent” by Tian Wang, an undergraduate from Virginia Tech. It focused on a student who creates a voodoo doll of her friend. Created using stop motion, the film was inarguably less impressive than some of the more sophisticated cinematography demonstrated by the other filmmakers. Nevertheless, this cute illustration of a clever story, pieced together by a cheerful buoyant score accompanying the shots, was enjoyable to watch.
On the whole, the festival showcased a wide variety of films. The audience watched shorts ranging from a critique on modern beauty, “American Beauty?” directed by Kemi Layeni; music videos such as MFKAZ’s “I’m Lit,” directed by Sean Cooper, and “Let’s Do That,” directed by Sandy Williams; and documentaries, like director Leah Pouliot’s “Home On the Range,” which was especially sobering in its examination of the ongoing gun legislation crisis in America.
One major stand-out was director Brendan Rijke’s “Diane,” a narrative about a daughter’s quest to reunite with the mother who gave her up for adoption when she was a baby. Rijke’s masterful ability to build tension with wide, close-up shots of the actors faces, as well as create intermittent play with light, made this a beautiful film. One cinematically stunning shot at the film’s end, for example, saw the camera pan down to the daughter driving along a highway against a pink sky and blue mountains, with light flooding the shot and music building to a crescendo. It was beautiful and moving, and quite simply cathartic for the audience.
All these films demonstrated the innovation and creative ability of the student filmmakers, with a large number from the University, due to its dominance in the festival’s competitive film submissions this year. The University’s strong presence stood as testimony to the artistic talent harbored by these students.
However, despite the strenuous efforts of the members of the filmmaking society to host a successful event, the lack of audience in attendance was noticeable and disappointing. The films were worthy of a bigger audience but will continue to exist in obscurity unless a greater spotlight is shed on this annual film festival and the film arts at the University.
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