Ella Giere | Student Life

“Film is such a special way…to show people art and emotions and feelings…where even through language barriers you can still understand stories and get to experience them,” Sophie Weiss, junior and film director, said. WashU Film Club created a space to make such an experience possible.

On Sept. 13 and 14, the WashU Film Club hosted its inaugural Film Festival, where filmmakers showcased submitted short films. Audience members flocked to Simon Hall and Brown Hall, where WashU and non-WashU students alike presented narrative, documentary, and experimental films to an expectant crowd and judges. Student filmmakers were eligible to win six awards in the following categories: Best Narrative Film, Best Experimental Film, Best Documentary Film, and Best Super Short Film.

Back in April, the WashU Film Club announced the Film Festival, and students globally were given the opportunity to submit films until Aug. 16. After a one-month screening period, 47 films were selected representing filmmakers from 10 different countries and 28 colleges and universities. Eleven of the 47 films were from WashU students. 

“I am really impressed with the representation from different parts of the world,” Deirdre Maitre, senior lecturer in the WashU film and media studies department, said. “I am also really inspired that they have chosen films that are meaningful…it’s central to independent filmmaking that there is both quality work that is engaging while also entertaining,” she said. “Watching [the filmmakers] put their heart, soul, time, and effort into presenting their work to the public really moves me.”

For junior and WashU Film Club president, Marielle Morrow, presenting films to a live audience was a “rewarding experience.”

“There were definitely some moments where I think I heard some of the audience members go, ‘whoa.’ It’s like all of this work that I’ve put into this has really paid off,” Morrow said.

Students weren’t limited to one film submission for the festival. Weiss, a film and media studies major, produced and assistant-directed three of the films screened at the Film Festival: “Nona,” “Blown Vein,” and “The Other Side of the Clouds.” 

“‘Nona’ was the biggest undertaking up to this point that I’ve taken on,” Weiss said about “Nona’s” 20 minute run-time. “It’s a psychological thriller about a guy who has a lot of internal battles, and his relationship with women is very complicated, and he tends to use violence to replace actual emotions and empathy. We get to follow his descent into madness.”

The team got the rights to Stephen King’s book through a project called “The Dollar Baby.” 

“You’re able to buy the rights to a Stephen King short story for a dollar,” Weiss said. 

As it turns out, it’s easier to get rights to a Stephen King story than to produce a film, especially when working with a team of almost 30 people. Weiss’s team was entirely WashU students, but everyone contributed in different capacities, from directors to editors to extras. Weiss found that the collaborative effort was not without its challenges.

“It’s hard to work on a film in a peer environment because everybody is very much equal. However, film crews naturally have hierarchies. There’s a lot of passion in those [film] sights, so it takes a lot to be able to recognize other people’s talents and your own flaws. I think the hardest part is definitely just trying to put any differences aside to make sure the final project is the best it can be,” Weiss said.

Another challenge for Weiss was the editing and logistics. 

“There’s the actual cut of the film, but then there’s color, sound, music, and putting it all together…We do our best to prepare for everything possible, but there’s always something that happens, whether it’s weather or a location we thought we’d secured not working out,” Weiss said. 

With so many moving parts, from actors to weather, a designated person to coordinate roles is imperative. This was Weiss’s job as a producer and assistant director. 

“I love producing because it’s the organizational side, and every role is so important, so being the sort of overhead watcher, I get to see everything that’s going [on],” she said.

“Crunch” was a movie submitted by students from DePauw University. Though out of state, several students, including Chi Q Pham (director), Aline Ngyuen (assistant director), Jolie Le (actor), and Bekah Paul (composer), attended the festival.

Pham describes her movie as, “A girl gets bored and takes herself on a date.” This isn’t the first time “Crunch,” a nominee in the experimental section, has been shown. 

“‘Crunch’ was also selected for an independent film festival in California, and my film has been screened at a couple of school events,” Pham said.

A film major at DePauw University, Pham reflected on her starting ideas for the movie.

“It was intended to be a short, sweet project. It’s originally just a class final project, and I believe at this stage of life, the story I can tell best within my abilities are things I know about myself. I have to make stories out of my own experiences before I go on and understand and portray others’ experiences,” Pham said.

For Pham, it is making movies, not watching them, that inspires her. 

“I want to make things move. I feel a really strong sense of connection when I put things together that don’t seem to belong and then really harmonize,” she said. “I consider ‘Crunch’ my first official film.” 

This movie was a first for the film’s composer Bekah Paul as well. She enjoyed that her work on this project added something valuable to a larger project; she explained that music is an integral part of a film for her.

“It completely changes it and so does the lack of music. It adds a whole other dimension to the film…The music makes the emotions better, or detaches the audience for a certain part, or brings them in, and it adds a whole other aspect to it…it’s definitely a core part to the film,” Paul said.

Jodie Le, the lead actress in the film, recounted the differences between her experience in theatrical acting and film acting. 

“It’s really different from theater, but it’s really fun. Even sleeping is hard on screen…staying still,” she said, recalling a 20 second sleep scene that took half an hour to film in 40 degree weather.

The film was also a first for assistant director Aline Nguyen.

“This was a new experience for me…I searched the internet ‘what does the assistant director do,’” she said. “Chi Q has taught me a lot about lighting and sounds and how to arrange the set.”

From start to finish, “Crunch” took two months of long work. 

“I didn’t feel married to any specific points in the story, just genuinely married to the visuals of this project, and that was my main focus…It’s a first for everyone, so I wanted everyone to have the most creative liberty in it,” Le said.

The films weren’t the only projects that took time. The newly-christened WashU Film Festival epitomized the significant growth and success of the WashU film and media studies program in recent years. Particularly, the festival highlighted the school’s investment in student film with the creation of the production concentration in the major. 

“The first foray into production that we did in film and media studies was by hiring our screenwriter Richard Chapman. Professor Chapman has taught screenwriting for many years, and [he is] an industry veteran,” Professor John Powers, a judge and associate professor of film and media studies, said. “But when we started the production concentration, which was in 2018, that’s when we really started to see the filmmaking side of things beyond screenwriting really take off.” 

Chapman explained that after the hiring of Professor Deirdre Maitre, the department noticed a change in student culture.

“We noticed another kind of big leap in terms of the skills that they were getting in classes, and the ambition of the films that they were making, and just the culture of the students all being excited about film together,” Chapman said.

For Morrow, preparation for her film “To My Future, Whether Near or Far,” came in part from the program’s emphasis on theory and history. 

“A lot of inspiration in the style of my film came from movies that I saw…and I’ve written essays about in classes,” Morrow said.

As a whole, the festival provided a space for WashU and the larger film community of student filmmakers to present their creations on the big screen and to celebrate the medium. 

“I think the film department is obviously doing an amazing job just from the quality of their productions…Seeing your film on your laptop or in your class is one thing, but seeing it on a big screen with other people is a completely different feeling and [one] that everybody should experience,” Emmett Williams, a judge and the Director of Festivals Curation and Education at Cinema St. Louis, said. “So the fact that this festival is providing that for people is such a big deal.”