UCLA student’s past fuels success at film festival

Mark Columbus saw a piece of himself reflected in the troubled expression of Charlie Foster, the protagonist of his latest short film, “Guests.” The film, based on Robert Boswell’s short story of the same name, centers on Charlie’s struggle to mature quickly when his father is diagnosed with cancer. To Columbus, whose father had a heart attack when Columbus was young, the story seemed familiar.

“Having to be forced to grow up when you’re very young was something that I was tied to for a character,” said Columbus, a graduate student in directing at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. “My family and I had a lot of financial problems when I was younger, so I had to grow up faster than most other kids.”

The short premiered at the 41st Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on Labor Day weekend during the Student Prints portion of the festival.

Adapted from Boswell’s series of short stories in “The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards,” the film was created by Columbus as part of actor James Franco’s adaptation and collaboration class at UCLA. From the 13 short stories in the collection, the class’s eight student directors each selected one to produce. A feature-length version merges all eight short films, one after the other, with “Guests” opening. Although the feature-length version has not yet premiered, it will be titled after the Boswell series.

Franco, the executive producer, used his Hollywood connections to get actor Matthew Modine to play the father and “Modern Family” star Rico Rodriguez to play Charlie. Producer and UCLA alumnus Tatenda Mbudzi said the cast overall had great chemistry while on set, which helped the shooting progress quickly.

Columbus said he personally identified with Charlie’s character not only because of his family’s financial struggles, but also because Columbus, who is of both Indian and Chinese descent, empathized with the protagonist’s mixed-race family.

“Guests,” along with the other stories of “The Heydey of the Insensitive Bastards,” primarily deals with themes of American culture and memory. To mirror the fluidity of memory and to make the film more realistic, Columbus said he decided to direct the film in a handheld documentary style.

“Shooting it handheld helped match the chaotic theme of the story,” Columbus said. “There’s more freedom in the performance, and that makes for a better performance when the camera can adjust to the actors as opposed to the actors having to adjust to the camera.”

Fabian Wagmister, TFT’s vice chair of production and directing, coordinated and created Franco’s class, and said Columbus’ ability to manage his actors constitutes one of his strengths as a director.

“He’s a very sensitive film director with an incredible talent for working with people,” Wagmister said. “The way he leads his crew, his collaborators and especially his actors is really spectacular.”

Working with Franco on the film also informed his directing and proved to be a liberating experience. Ultimately, Columbus thought of Franco as both a mentor and a spiritual adviser because he taught Columbus to trust his intuition.

“I can pitch him any idea that I want,” Columbus said. “He’ll totally receive it, and he’ll never shoot anything down. He’ll always try to make things better.”

While Columbus said he does not know how critics received his film, a few other festivals contacted him after Telluride for permission to screen “Guests.” He will also submit “Guests” to other festivals, though he said does not know which ones at this time. In the meantime, he is currently working on a television pilot for his master’s thesis about an Asian-American middle schooler who decides to join a small-time suburban gang in order to financially support his struggling family.

Columbus may have, at least temporarily, moved on from short films, but William McDonald, a professor and department chair of Film, Television and Digital Media who worked with Columbus in his cinematography class, said that the film department is very proud of his successes in the festival circuit.

“He has a real eye for story and character,” McDonald said. “It’s very unusual for a film student to have multiple films play at film festivals while still a student, so he’s clearly doing something right.”

Although Columbus has changed the format of his tales, he said he still maintains a personal touch on each story.

“It’s easier for me to share my emotions or write for characters when it comes from my personal life because the work is kind of already halfway done for me,” Columbus said. “I just have to write it out.”