UCLA’s Shorttakes festival screens student films

In recent years, it seems as if movies are getting longer and longer, making some difficult to sit through. The Shorttakes Film Festival has just the solution – a selection of short films that are light on length and heavy on content.

Tonight, Shorttakes, presented by the Campus Events Commission, will feature 15 short films that have been selected from submissions received from undergraduate and graduate students from UCLA and other colleges and universities across the country. Shorttakes will recognize student productions in the categories of drama/thriller, comedy, documentary and animation.

All of the films have been screened and, as in past years, evaluated by celebrity judges, including Matthew Grey Gubler, Wentworth Miller and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

At the conclusion of the festival, Jessica Kim, a third-year anthropology student and CEC festivals director, said the winning films in each category will be announced. After initially receiving 70 submissions to the festival, Kim said the films were screened and narrowed down to the 15 that will be shown tonight.

“We look for films with interesting storylines and we also take the production value into consideration since these are student films,” Kim said.

This year’s filmmakers include Neil Paik, a fourth-year film, television and digital media student and former Daily Bruin opinion editor and news writer, who was chosen for his film “The Doctor of Bagram,” inspired by an article he wrote for the Daily Bruin in September 2011 about a UCLA medical school graduate serving in Afghanistan. Paik said his film tells the story of a trauma surgeon serving in Afghanistan who comes face to face with the realities of war, including the Afghan people affected by the violence.

“I wanted to focus on showing the human side of war,” Paik said. “At the end, I hope the impression that it gives is that war has detrimental effects on everybody.”

Paik, who is pursuing a directing concentration, said he wrote, edited and produced the film, which he shot over a period of four days at the end of fall quarter. He spent the winter working on the film’s post-production and has spent the remainder of the school year putting the finishing touches on this project.

For other filmmakers, the process was much shorter. Third-year sociology student and CEC media production director Donna Du said she filmed her project, “The Drifter Condition,” in just three hours after being inspired by a poem she wrote. She converted her poem into a short film about the fear of settling down after college.

“One of my biggest fears is having to settle down in life,” Du said. “In class, I wrote a poem about having to settle down and how I thought it would be miserable, and the poem turned into an idea for the short.”

For aspiring young filmmakers and producers, like Paik and Du, the festival is also an opportunity to receive feedback from well-known judges with experience in the film industry.

Du, who also had a film screened at last year’s festival, said she decided to enter after learning that Wentworth Miller was one of the judges. After making the last-minute decision to create a new short film, Du decided to use a combination of voice-overs and montages to speed up the process.

The filmmakers and the audience will have the opportunity to participate in a question and answer session with guests including Rider Strong, Tommy Chong, Kel Mitchell and Mindy Sterling.

“I’m really hoping that Wentworth Miller watched my film,” Du said. “The festival staff asks the judges to write down comments, so I’m really hoping that I get (feedback).”

In addition to interacting with the celebrity guests, students who attend the festival will also vote for the students’ choice award and have the opportunity to win prizes, including Spring Sing tickets and iTunes cards.

Even though the festival has been held since 1992, its mission to screen quality student films has remained the same. Paik said he hopes to bring together people of different views, even if just for a few minutes.

“When you go into a theater, people come in with very different opinions, but they all come together to watch a piece of work,” Paik said. “For a certain amount of time you can show people a certain story or give them a certain message. It’s a really profound social experience to screen a film.”