It’s that time again! The eighth annual BestFest America Student Film Festival is here, and the lineup for 2006 is packed with variety.
With a collaboration of imaginative students and inspiring visions from colleges and high schools all over the nation, this year’s BestFest will be “film-filled,” capturing any film fan’s heart, laughter, fear, tears and much more.
The Visual Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed in 1986, launches its eighth year of film-mania next Friday, July 28. Each of three days will comprise a series of screenings in categories including drama, comedy, horror, music video, commercials and animation.
“Just over 1,000 students submitted to this project,” said David Larson, executive director for BestFest. “That’s about 500 entries.”But only a total of 64 award-winning short films have successfully captured a piece of the spotlight in the largest student film festival in the country.
“One thing about these [film shorts] is that if you don’t like what you’re watching, the pain will be over in five or 10 minutes,” he said.
Point Loma’s High Tech High School will be just one of the schools representing San Diego in the three-day festival.
“Per Qualche Pesos in Piu,” created by student Tim Fox and instructor Blair Hatch, is a 29-minute comedy that is to be screened on Saturday, July 29.
“Talk about some laughs,” Larson said. “High-school students aren’t supposed to make 29-minute films like this. This guy does it, and it’s done well.”
Also from High Tech High, student Sirous Mostashari, along with instructor Hatch, produced a horror/thriller called “The Perfect School.” Production and sound are key elements in filmmaking, and Larson said this film feels like a real movie. Both Mostashari and Hatch star in the film, to be screened opening day.
The festival packs a lot into three days. Combined with full days of short films that students essentially spent months working on before submitting, BestFest announced the screening of 48 Hours of Madness, as well as an opening-night world premiere event.
Written by Frank E. Flowers, and produced by former Miramax producer Robbie Brenner, the never-before-seen movie “Haven” premieres at 7 p.m. opening night. Flowers is a new name to the fame of the film industry. However, when presented with the Flowers manuscript, Brenner was impressed enough to quit her job with Miramax to take on what she thought could be a hit movie, Larson said. Actors Orlando Bloom, Bill Paxton and Zoe Saldana star in the film.
Unfamiliar with 48 Hours of Madness? Forty teams of students were given the same five-page script, and only 48 hours to produce it. Of the 40 teams, the five best films from the college and high school level were selected to screen at the festival “based on their unique interpretation, creativity and technical merits.”
Larson said it is an amazing competition to witness. The students put all of their effort and creativity into 48 hours, and after having practically “walked over broken glass for two days,” when they hand over the finished work, “it’s like handing over a newborn child,” he said. Then all they can do is hope to receive the desired effects from the audience.
This year’s script was written by De Veau Dunn, winner of the very first 48 Hours of Madness competition. The plot covers extortion and betrayal, but requires that students maintain creations within a PG-13 rating.
The first film to ever receive a standing ovation in 48 Hours of Madness was this year’s “Critic’s Corner,” which screened for the first time on March 26, Larson said. The film was created by students Ariel Adler, Michael Gallagher, Sam Sabawi, Matt Rosen and instructor Jon Robertson of Torrey Pines High School.
“Our goal is to try to help along the next-generation Spielbergs,” Larson said. “This experience gives [students] an opportunity to have their creations seen in front of large audiences. They just don’t get those opportunities.
“This is the ‘NASCAR’ of film-making. Everyone uses the same track, the same pit, but each driver is different.”
Interpretation varies with imagination.
The BestFest America Student Film Festival takes place from July 28 to 30, noon to 11 p.m. each day, at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Sherwood Auditorium, 700 Prospect St.
Tickets for any screening may only be purchased during the festival at the museum’s box office for $6 each. To attend all nine screenings, a BestFest pass may be purchased for $35.
Proceeds go toward the continuance of BestFest and toward producing a DVD set that highlights this year’s worth of film-school in one weekend.
For more information, call (858) 449-7085 or visit http://www.bestfestamerica.org.