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Chasing Big-Screen
Dreams
By Alexandyr Kent
Special to The Times
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"Maybe this is
not the age of speech contests," says Michelle
Glaros, an assistant professor of communications
at Centenary College. "Maybe this is the age of
film festivals."
Glaros offered up this notion at a department
meeting last fall when she and her colleagues
were brainstorming about an event that could
highlight young voices (K-12) from around the
region.
When Jefferson Hendricks, a Centenary English
professor and board member of the Louisiana Film
Center, heard this, he began to work with Glaros
to organize the Student Division program of the
Louisiana Film Festival.
This two-day student event, to be held this
weekend, represents a step toward the
full-fledged Louisiana Film Festival for
professional filmmakers that is planned for the
near future, hopefully next year.
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From left,
Danny Lachman,
Chris Lyon,
Luke Lee,
Hunter Carter,
and Evan
Falbaum.
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The festival also
represents one of the many program initiatives
of the Louisiana Film Center, which plans to
officially open its building at 617 Texas St. in
downtown by 2006. In addition to film festivals,
the Louisiana Film Center will show independent
films in its theaters, provide educational
programs and promote regional filmmaking.
This
festival is anchored by a screening of Alice
Elliott's The Collector of Bedford Street at
7:30 p.m. Friday in Centenary's Carlisle Hall.
Elliott will introduce her Academy
Award-nominated documentary short (34 minutes)
and answer questions afterwards.
"This is a good way to get the festival started.
The Louisiana Film Center was thinking of doing
something similar at the same time, so it was
best for Centenary and the Center to work
together and create one program," Hendricks
says. Louisiana Public Broadcasting is providing
sponsorship support.
Hendricks and Glaros laid the groundwork last
fall, and then sent out a call for entries in
spring 2004 and again in early fall. They
received 12 short films from middle-school and
high-school students from northwest Louisiana,
and one from south Arkansas. The works range
from raw to polished, mock infomercial to drama,
and personal narrative to political manifesto.
Many of them will be screened during two
sessions of the two-day festival: the first at
6:15 p.m. Friday, and the second at 10:30 a.m.
Saturday.
Three of the young filmmakers who submitted work
-- Danny Lachman, Evan Falbaum, and Hunter
Carter -- are involved in Caddo Magnet High
School's Picasso Digital Arts Club, which was
started by teacher Robert Trudeau in 2001. While
they often make programs for their school's
closed-circuit television station, Caddo Magnet
Television (CMTV), they spend time outside of
school collaborating on personal film projects.
All have digital video cameras, all edit their
work on home computers, and all are passionate
about making films that inspire them to look at
life in deeply personal, and often quirky, ways.
They collaborated on Hey, God, a film in
which a guy contemplates the greater
significance of a recent spate of bad luck.
Says Falbaum, "We wanted to make a film where
there's a guy sitting in a coffee shop. All of
the sudden, God sits at his table. This guy
tries to figure out if God showing up is a good
thing or not."
Lachman points out that even though the guy was
recently mugged and hit by a car, he is still
living and has little reason to complain. "What
would life be like if we didn't have
down-points?'" asks Lachman philosophically. "We
wouldn't know what was good if we never had bad
times. I think Hey, God tells us to be
optimistic about the future."
"The whole point of having God there is to pull
the viewer back into a cosmic view of the
world," interjects Carter. "From God's point of
view, the guy's troubles are not that big of a
deal."
All three are looking forward to the two-day
festival, where they can reach a new audience,
network with peers, and attend a workshop led by
documentary filmmaker Alice Elliott. Says
Lachman, "I want to watch all the other films
and learn from the whole experience."
Two other young filmmakers -- Chris Lyon
(senior) of Captain Shreve and Luke Lee (senior)
of Caddo Magnet -- collaborated on Et Tu,
an ambitious 15-minute adaptation of
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
In setting their film in present-day Shreveport,
Lyon and Lee took inspiration from the 1996
adaptation, Romeo + Juliet, which was set
in the modern suburb of Verona, Calif., and
updated swordplay with gunplay.
Lyon and Lee are deeply inspired by blockbuster
filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg. They work
with computer-editing programs like Adobe
Premiere to see if they can replicate
blockbuster-like digital effects in their own
work.
Hendricks hopes that these young filmmakers, and
others who will see their work during the
festival, will gain from the experience.
Hendricks says, "Just in the act of submitting
their films they will go beyond the communities
of their friends and classrooms. I hope that
they get a better sense of what they have to do
to get their work out in the world."
"Hopefully, the student division will grow as
the word gets out," says Glaros. "Perhaps some
people who come to the festival this year will
think about submitting something next year. It
should foster growth and creative exploration in
the community."
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