Photos by Ezri Braid-Grizzel ’23
The student jury of the Five College Film Festival gathered in Amherst College’s Stirn Auditorium to judge their peers’ submissions last Friday.
BY EZRI BRAID-GRIZZELL ’23
At first, Amherst College’s Stirn Auditorium — this year’s location of the 2020 Five College Film Festival — was almost empty, save for a few students chatting about last-minute preparations. The only indication I was in the right place were the programs on the front table and the festival flyer on the auditorium projection screen. But soon, people started pouring in, filling the air with a sense of artistic pretentiousness and a kind of off-beat humor that only 200 film students could produce.
The crowd stopped pouring in about 15 minutes after the projected start time, and everyone settled down with their complimentary cookies. Once everyone was seated, Jackson Lee, the student director of this year’s festival, leapt on stage and welcomed the audience with a quick background.
The festival was established in 1994 as a place for Five College students to showcase their original film works and has been running ever since, making this its 26th year. Each year, dozens of students submit their films, which are then judged and selected for the festival. A jury of students — hand-picked by faculty from each of the Five Colleges’ film programs — spend hours watching and voting on the films over a rigorous two-day process. This year alone, the festival received 87 submissions. Only 26 films made it through to the festival for a collective running time of two hours, 38 minutes and 16 seconds.
For those who stay the whole way through, it was an experience to remember. Hanye Chen ’20, a film studies and French double major, was one of this year’s jury members. “It was a lot. I was so inspired by them,” she said, as she compared watching the screened films to her own filmmaking experience. “[You see] how hard it is to get this sort of magical shot.”
Her words reflected what played on the screen, from the dozens of leaves laminated onto the film reel in “Seven Sisters” (directed by Elizabeth Green from Smith College), to the crystal-clear drone shot of thousands of Tibetan prayer flags in “Phuntsok” (directed by Joseph Chogyam Weingrad from the University of Massachusetts Amherst).
Of the 26 films shown, three were made by the Mount Holyoke community. They included “Can You Hear Me?” directed by Anna Morris ’20, “Warmth” directed by Dnyaneshwari Satish Haware ’23 and “Sleep Paralysis” directed by recent alum Cass Fernandez-Dieguez ’19. “Sleep Paralysis” was the longest film in the festival, running 24 minutes and 28 seconds, and the winner of the Best Narrative Award.
Haware originally learned how to make films just last semester in her first-year seminar. “It’s like a hobby for me now that I know the process. I can [produce a film] whenever I have free time — whenever I feel I have something to share,” she said. “You make a film and it’s your own idea. But when you show it to people ... their response is always a way of reflecting the film.”
Indeed, the audience had quite a few responses from the films shown this year. “Ada Alone” (directed by Isabel Beeman from Smith College) won an Honorable Mention and the Audience Award, which was voted on by audience members. The film told the story of an older woman whose life consisted of household chores and taking care of a huge cockroach. While it sounds like an odd audience favorite, it drew an overwhelming reaction of laughs and gasps from the audience, more than any other film.
“I forget your name” (directed by Samuel Huntley from the University of Massachusetts Amherst), which tells the story of a student who can’t remember another’s name despite their bafflingly deep history, brought the greatest number of laughs in the festival. “Hey, Ravioli!” (directed by Lena Lamer from Amherst College) also brought huge laughs, amidst debate. This film is about a student who wants to eat a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli, but he is interrupted by a girl who ruins it.
“Some people don’t really like it,” Chen remembered about the jury’s reaction to “Hey, Ravioli!”
While neither of the two films won any awards or were technical masterpieces like “Sleep Paralysis” and “Phuntsok,” they have lingered in my mind since the festival. The beauty of the festival is how it provides a place for all sorts of films to come together: animation and live action, experimental and documentary, from new filmmakers and experienced ones. The filmmakers ranged from delivering their messages brilliantly, to flying completely over the audiences’ heads.
“We need to really break down all these ‘artsy’ things so that more people can try it out,” Haware said.
The Five College Film Festival is a place where all film buffs in the Consortium can come together to watch films, not revered due to their professional level, but due to their creativity and individuality. It’s unclear when the festival is coming to Mount Holyoke, but it’s an experience I encourage everyone to attend whenever you get the chance.