A Short Version of Great Films to Come: The Angelus Student Film Festival and Awards
by Dr. Marc T. Newman
October 27, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Promising. That is the thought that goes through your head if you are fortunate enough to attend the Angelus Student Film Festival and Awards. As someone who has been around college students for over 20 years, I recognize that for many students college is just a way station used to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. For the student filmmakers represented at Angelus, college has been a grand tutor -- providing them with the tools and skills necessary to nurture their talent and to bring their visions to life. And what grand visions they are. It was a treat to be able to attend last Saturday.Held each year at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood -- an exquisite forum in which to showcase the students' films -- the Angelus Student Film Festival and Awards honor student filmmakers from all over the world. Angelus doesn't showcase the standard Hollywood fare. The Angelus movies reflect a worldview that recognizes the value of human dignity and which celebrate the triumph of the human spirit. Even though the films were shorts (no film longer than 30 minutes, though Angelus accepts entries up to 90 minutes in length) they were powerful representations of ideals that are reflected in the Christian tradition.
While all of the films were good, some truly stood out for me because they represented different aspects of sacrifice that are compelling: sacrificing pride, sacrificing prejudice, and sacrificing self.
Sacrificing Pride
Anna Christopher, from the American Film Institute, won the Priddy Brothers' Entertainment "Triumph" Award for her film Queen of Cactus Cove. In this film we meet Billie, the hands-down chess champion of her community. She regularly beats her best friend, Achak, at their regular meetings held in an abandoned, drained swimming pool. The hash mark tally on the pool's wall tells the tale: Billie has been undefeated for months.
But just before she and Achak leave for the state championship tournament, he scores an amazing upset. Once her string of wins is snapped, Billie's confidence begins to waver. At the state tournament Billie conquers opponent after opponent until finally she sits in the finalist chair with a "bring it on" attitude. But to Billie's surprise, it is Achak who plops down in the opposing chair.
Queen of Cactus Cove is filled with whimsical images -- the audience was particularly fond of the illuminated sign of a tropical hula girl welcoming people to this tiny desert community. But beneath the nice camera work are interesting characters that both teach and learn lessons about the consuming nature of pride and healing power of friendship. Christopher's film demonstrates that you can illustrate a great moral lesson without moralizing. The fistful of additional awards her film has received indicates that she is a writer/director worth watching.
Sacrificing Prejudice
The Mole-Richardson Production Design Award was given to Lucky, a film written and directed by Avie Luthra of the National Film and Television School in the United Kingdom. The beautifully-shot film opens with a young boy, Lucky, playing in the lush grasslands of his village in South Africa. Suddenly he is shipped off to the big city after his mother dies. Lucky is sent to live with a male relative, possibly his biological father, whom he does not know. It is clear from the outset that the man cares nothing for the boy. The only advice he gives to Lucky is to avoid the Indian woman down the hall because she reportedly eats black children.
The only remembrance Lucky has of his mother is a voice recording on a red cassette tape. Unfortunately he has no tape player. But one day, when the Indian woman is out trying to get water, Lucky notices a tape player in her apartment. Longing to hear the tape, he fetches some water for her, but all he gets for his trouble is a smack on the head from her stick. She may not eat black children, but she is prejudiced against them, and wants nothing to do with Lucky.
Despite the rocky start, over time the Indian woman softens a little toward Lucky, but it is a long road from suspicion to friendship. Lucky is a film that illustrates the power of caring for another human being as an antidote for prejudice. It was, at turns, hilarious and harrowing. The film was over too quickly and I found myself longing to know how the dangerous-when-riled Indian woman would eventually square away the man neglecting the little boy. This is the kind of storytelling that resonates with people. I am looking forward to more films from Mr. Luthra.
Sacrificing Self
Kilroy Was Here was a double winner, receiving both the Fujifilm Audience Impact Award and Outstanding Screenplay Award sponsored by Act One, Inc. Writer and director Charlie Boyles, from the North Carolina School of the Arts, crafts a riveting tale of an American paratrooper in World War II who dangles from his harness because his parachute is hopelessly tangled in the branches of a tree. Behind enemy lines in France, and with no way to free himself, he hangs 25 feet above the ground while a small group of abandoned French orphans runs past him, chased by Nazi SS officers who are intent on capturing or killing the kids. Taking out his handgun, the American soldier fires all of his remaining bullets and kills the two Nazis. The children return, carting the dead bodies deep into the brush, and then return to ransack the American's fallen pack for food and other provisions.
What follows is a tale of connection, communion, and sacrifice. The children, powerless to get the soldier down, toss up half a roll to help sustain him. They also send his harmonica back to him, and his music helps to soothe the sometimes savage, almost feral, children. Later, when more Nazis arrive to hunt the children, the paratrooper must wrestle with the prospect of self-sacrifice in order to save these children who he barely knows. Kilroy Was Here also contains a nod to the need to properly respond to gifts given -- all of them. Of all the wonderful films screened last Saturday, it was Boyles that stuck with me the longest.
Supporting Students
Other award-winners included The Trojan Cow -- the top-prize winner of the Excellence in Filmmaking Award -- written and directed by Barbara Stepansky from the American Film Institute. This movie explored the importance of cooperation in overcoming those with evil intent. Two teenagers risk their lives being transported across the East German border in the early 1970s in the belly of a hollow cow statue.
Nathan Collette, from the University of Southern California, won the Director's Choice Award for Kibera Kid -- a film set in the world's largest slum and starring African actors who live in the slum used for the location shoot. In Kibera Kid, a young boy's redemption from gangs begins when a security officer cares enough to step in.
The Outstanding Animation Award went to Phillip Smith of the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School for Crooked Mick of the Speewah. The tall tale mixed live action with fantastic animation as Strong Arm Sam and his manager, Gus, decide to travel to the mythical Speewah to test Sam's strength against the legendary Crooked Mick. This amusing film spoke to the need for contentment and the joy that can come from appreciating the gifts possessed by others, and blooming where you're planted.
Outstanding Documentary Award went to Silences, an autobiographical film chronicling the search of a young man of mixed race for the truth about his roots amid secrets and simmering racism in his Ohio town. Octavio Warnock-Graham's film celebrates truth and family.
These short films are better than many of the movies coming out of Hollywood today. Instead of the by-the-numbers, soulless films to which audiences are routinely subjected, these films have heart. They are works of passion. Best of all, they each touch on different, spiritually-provocative themes that could lead to intriguing conversations lasting late into the night. It is my sincere hope that Angelus will figure out a way to package these award-winning films to make them available to those who live too far away from a festival circuit.
In the meantime, keep an eye out for these talented filmmakers. They, and the Angelus Film Festival and Awards that bring them to our attention, are worthy of support. If the eventual feature-length projects of these young screenwriters and directors are anything at all like their short films, their audiences are in for a treat. Not the cotton-candy kind so frequently served up in multiplexes across the West, but the deeply satisfying, spiritually-nourishing kind for which people are starving.
Marc T. Newman, PhD (marc@movieministry.com) is the president of MovieMinistry.com -- an organization that provides sermon and teaching illustrations from popular film, and helps the Church use movies to reach out to others and connect with people.
