Ivy Film Festival Official 2020 Program by ivyfilmfestival.web

Letter from the Directors Since its founding in 2001, Ivy Film Festival has grown far beyond its initial conception. As IFF’s first-ever all-female director team, we further re-imagined the purpose and promise of the festival. Working with our leadership team at the start of the year, we created a new mission statement that reflects not only the festival’s physical growth, but also its evolution as a platform for young voices. Our new mission statement reads: Ivy Film Festival is dedicated to creating a platform for storytelling and the exchange of ideas between industry professionals and emerging creatives in hope of curating a vision of Hollywood for the next generation. Throughout the year, we worked to program a festival that reflects this mission in its every facet. At its core, IFF is a place to celebrate and elevate student work. The Programming, Screenplay, and New Media teams worked tirelessly to curate the remarkable screening blocks and screenplay collection that make up the 2020 Official Selection. It has also been a longstanding goal to support the Official Selection undergraduate and graduate filmmakers with a tangible “award.” Accordingly, we are proud and honored to have the participation of Creative Artists Agency in this festival, and to award our Grand Jury Prize winner a meeting with a CAA agent. The agency’s incredible support of our festival’s mission elevates this Official Selection to new heights. The festival we present to you now represents an evolution and transformation, the product of hard work on the part of ten teams and their exceptional coordinators. They dedicated their entire academic year to bring this festival to you, and over the last few weeks, even when their own lives were upended, they worked relentlessly to ensure its success. It is thanks to all of them that we welcome you today to this virtual Ivy Film Festival. When the world unraveled under the weight of a pandemic this winter, we fought to preserve as much of the festival as possible. Remaining committed to both our mission and the student filmmakers and screenwriters who entrusted their stories to us, we shifted to an online format. And while we may have lost the in-person communion of the festival week, the long-distance “virtual” communion is perhaps even more valuable today as we come together from all corners of the world in collective appreciation of extraordinary student art. Ivy Film Festival 2020 reflects our vision of Hollywood for the next generation and the work of students who are changing how we conceive of storytelling. On this website, you will screen three meticulously curated Official Selection Blocks of outstanding student films, entitled “PURPOSE,” “BRIDGES,” and “PRESSURE.” You will read excerpts from works by extraordinary student screenwriters and immerse yourselves in Virtual Reality 360º experiences, the new frontier of filmmaking.

Our online programming is a reminder that creative energy and community can endure amidst a crisis. Ivy Film Festival remains free and open to the public, but in lieu of an admission price, we invite you to join us in supporting the Rhode Island Free Clinic that provides medical care at no cost to uninsured adults in IFF’s home of Providence, Rhode Island. Now, more than ever, they are in need of support to address not only COVID-19-related health concerns, but also to continue to treat the ongoing chronic conditions of patients who depend on them. A donation of any amount will make a difference. We hope our online festival brings some small joy and reunion to Brown, RISD, and the greater creative community. We are thankful to all who helped make this festival possible — but especially to IFF’s 119 team members and 20 coordinators who brought this festival to you. At the end of the day, we are just a group of college students who love movies. And this is our way of celebrating their future.

With love, Grace Attanasio ‘21 Nora Graham ‘20 Sasha Pinto ‘21 Karina Rotenstreich ‘20

DIRECTORS Grace Attanasio Karina Rotenstreich

Nora Graham Sasha Pinto

BRANDING

EVENTS COORDINATOR Alisa Caira Izzy Di Rita STAFF Aastha Kannan Eli Kaplan Evelyn McKenney Hadley Benjamin Jane Attanasio, Joyce Tullis Kate Ok Lucas Gelfond Nina Fletcher Sloane Kratzman Tatiana Mandis Zoe Lee

COORDINATOR Alex Westfall STAFF Ethan Murakami Faye Thomas Joey Han Katrina Wardhana Liana Chaplain Manon Crespin

BUSINESS

COORDINATORS Claire Zhang Paty Garza STAFF Amanda Tung Charlotte Everett Dikshita Khullar Ellie Koschik Louisa Miller Rafaella Gorenflos

INDUSTRY

COORDINATORS Becca Wachter Jessica Dibble

Joe Suddleson STAFF Charlotte Wall Georgia Salke Rachel Carlson

NEW MEDIA

COORDINATORS Hannah Seckendorf STAFF Ambika Miglani Christian Cianfarani Christie Zhong Gregory Harris Matthew Ishimaru Michael Bass Mikey Abela Rachel Okin Victoria Xu

OUTREACH

COORDINATORS Annalie Brody Jeewon Shin STAFF Callie Zola Chloe Irving Hollie Kutscher Jenny Lange Lara Weyns Nicole Sohn Sofie Jiminez

PROGRAMMING

COORDINATORS Caleb O’Brien Stella Binion Yurema Perez-Hinojosa STAFF Afia Akosah-Bempah Ben Shrock Bianca Auriemo Chloe Khosrowshahi Ellen Ling Emily Chen Fiona Campbell Isabela Lovelace Isobel McCrum Jack Waters Jeremy Roth-Rose

Kaela Hines Kaiti Yoo Luca O’Donnell Max Niles Miya Matsuishi, Mohammed Akel Nitya Velakacharla Portia Tieze Quinn Coleman Ricardo Gomez Rita Slaoui Robert Capron Stefan Peyron Uwa Ede-Osifo

PUBLICITY

COORDINATOR Megan Kasselberg STAFF Alana Baer Alex Reice Alexa D’Ambrosio Andrew Rawlings Charlotte Balliett Elizabeth Zucker Isabella Yepes Kia Uusitalo Li Goldstein Matheson Kuo Yohan Mutta

SCREENPLAY

COORDINATORS: Emma Weiss Joshua Danielson Nate Kublin STAFF Catherine Kasparyan Chun Lexi King Clara Devine-Golub Elena Levin Elise Dadourian Evan Ehrhardt Justin Woo Kitri Sundaram Mari Herrema Nicolaia Rips Shilpa Sajja Vivian Chun Kaetlyn Liddy

WEB

COORDINATORS Erin Simshauser Katie Friis STAFF Jack Kates Luna Ito-Fisher Young Jie Cho

IFF x The Rhode Island Free Clinic Central to Ivy Film Festival is our mission to curate a vision of Hollywood for the next generation, with the platform we provide our exceptional young filmmakers. In the wake of COVID-19, we felt it imperative to maintain this platform in every way we could. But most importantly, we felt an urgent need to use our platform to help those in need in any way we can. Though our festival lives online this year, IFFâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home is Providence, Rhode Island. Our staff is now scattered across the globe, but our hearts remain in Rhode Island, a state that urgently needs help and resources to continue fighting this battle. Ivy Film Festival has always been free and open to the public, and that continues. But this year, we are asking our audiences to, in lieu of ticket fees, make an optional donation to the Rhode Island Free Clinic. Established in 1999, the Rhode Island Free Clinic mobilizes vital health resources for Rhode Islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s uninsured adults. The Clinic also provides the most efficient and cost effective alternative to emergency rooms for uninsured residents seeking comprehensive health care. At this time, the Clinic needs public support more than ever to address COVID-19-related health concerns, and to continue to care for the chronic conditions for patients that would otherwise be unable to seek treatment.

Please consider going to https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ivyfilmfestival to help support the vital work of the Rhode Island Free Clinic.

professionals and Integral to the fabric of Ivy Film Festival is our ability to foster dialogue between industry imperative to us remained it year, this week festival physical our hold to unable are we emerging creatives. Though that we find a way to maintain this exchange of ideas. dialogue. ConversaThe Ivy Film Festival Digital Speaker Series represents our commitment to this ongoing specified). We otherwise (unless tions will be live-streamed to our Facebook page, and later uploaded to YouTube ity to learn opportun the s audience our gifted have are so grateful to the extraordinarily generous individuals who efforts relief COVID vital the of some promote to platform this use to from them. And we feel honored to be able us that film serves to remind crisis of Times time. this during support eded much-ne country the that are providing the help of our remarkable bring people together, and to bring people joy. Our hope for this series was that with apart. are we when even speakers, we can bring our community together,

Eliza Hittman

April 28, 5pm EDT

photo credit: Victoria Stevens

Eliza Hittman is an award-winning filmmaker, born and based in Brooklyn, NY. Her latest film Never Rarely Sometimes Always premiered in the US Dramatic Competition section at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival where it received a special jury prize. The film had its international premiere in competition in the Berlin Film Festival and was released by Focus Features this spring and is now available on VOD. Beach Rats, her second feature film, premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, where she won the Directing Award. It premiered internationally at Locarno in the Golden Leopard Competition and was the Centerpiece Film at New Directors / New Films. Beach Rats was released domestically by NEON Rated, and was a New York Times Critics' Pick. It was the winner of the Artios Award for Outstanding Achievement in Casting, Outstanding Screenwriting in a U.S. Feature at Outfest, and the London Criticsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Circle Film Award for Young British/Irish Performer of the Year. In 2018, it was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Male Lead at the Independent Spirit awards and a Breakthrough Actor Award for the Gothams Awards. Her micro-budget feature film It Felt Like Love premiered at Sundance in 2013 in NEXT and was a New York Times Critic's Pick. She earned an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and is currently an Assistant Professor of Film/Video at Pratt Institute. She is the recipient of the Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center, and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. Eliza would like to use this time to promote Planned Parenthood, whose public health services need your support now more than ever in order to ensure that every person receives the care they need.

Jon M. Chu

TBA

Jon M. Chu is known for his visually stunning blockbuster films, as well as his kinetic work across various genres, from groundbreaking series to commercials and films. Most recently, he directed the worldwide phenomenon “Crazy Rich Asians,” which was nominated for numerous awards, including a SAG Award, a Golden Globe, and PGA Award. The film has earned more than $175 million in the United States alone, with a worldwide gross of almost $240 million, making it one of the top 10 highest grossing romantic comedies of all time. It was the first contemporary studio picture in more than 25 years to feature an all-Asian cast, and it represents a new chapter in Chu's 10-year career. This year, Chu helmed his most ambitious project to date, the highly anticipated adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical “In the Heights” for Warner Bros. Studios. He also recently served as an executive producer and director on "Home Before Dark," a series for Apple starring Jim Sturgess and Brooklyn Prince, inspired by the true story of 11-year-old investigative reporter Hilde Lysiak. Chu’s previous credits include “Step Up 2: The Streets,” “GI. Joe: Retaliation,” “Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never” and many more representing over 1.3 billion dollars in the worldwide box office. Additionally, his unique storytelling ability has earned him the honor of being on the Hollywood Reporter’s Power 100 list as well as Variety’s New Hollywood Leaders.

Bryan Cranston April 30, 5pm EDT

Bryan Cranston is an Academy Award nominee, and Emmy®, Golden Globe, SAG, Tony® and Olivier Award winner whom Wes Anderson calls “one of the greatest living actors on the planet.” Cranston has played diverse characters from the lovable television dad on “Malcolm in the Middle” to the not-so-lovable drug dealer Walter White on the runaway smash hit “Breaking Bad,” which shot Cranston to superstardom and six Emmy wins. And as Wes Anderson declared, “if you’ve seen ‘Breaking Bad,’ then you have seen an actor cross the most vast panorama of emotions within a single character.” On the big screen, Cranston earned an Academy Award Best Actor nomination playing blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in the titular role of “Trumbo” and has starred in a string of Hollywood blockbusters, most recently opposite Nicole Kidman in “The Upside.” Cranston has also worked as a voice actor in myriad animated films including Wes Anderson's “Isle of Dogs,” as the leading mutt, Chief. On Broadway, Cranston dazzled audiences in “Network” and “All The Way,” earning Tony awards for both and an Olivier Award for his London performance of Network. In his spare time, Cranston also penned his memoir, “A Life in Parts,” which landed him on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Reuniting with his “Breaking Bad” co-star, Aaron Paul, the two friends recently launched an artisanal mezcal brand, Dos Hombres, out of a desire to work together again. And until May 5, they are donating 100% of online sales to various relief organizations including the Hospitality Industry Relief Fund, Bartender’s Guild, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s America’s Food Fund. As Cranston wrote, “During these uncertain times we need to come together and help each other – now more than ever.”

Valerie Jarrett April 30, 7pm EDT

Valerie Jarrett is a New York Times Bestseller author of Finding My Voice, an American lawyer, businesswoman, and politician. She was senior advisor to President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. She oversaw the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs in addition to chairing the White House Council on Women and Girls. She has a BA from Stanford and a JD from the University of Michigan. She is currently chairman of the board of When We All Vote, co-chair of The United State of Women, a senior advisor to the Obama Foundation and a senior distinguished fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

Each year, our Programming Team curates both an Official Selection and a Grand Jury Selection. This selection is sent to our Grand Jury, a rotating panel of esteemed industry professionals, who collectively award one film the Grand Jury Prize. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Grand Jury Selection, assembled in a block titled BRIDGES and screening on April 25th, represent the best and most captivating films from an already outstanding pool. In further commitment to our mission to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas between industry professionals and emerging creatives, IFF is proud to announce the participation of leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in the festival. Through the agency, for the first time ever, we will award a physical Grand Jury Prize: a meeting with a CAA agent for the winning filmmaker.

Annabelle Attanasio Annabelle Attanasio is a writer and director based in Brooklyn. Annabelleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first feature, MICKEY AND THE BEAR, tells the story of a teenage girl tasked with taking care of her single, veteran, opioid-addicted father in the small town of Anaconda, Montana. In 2019, MICKEY premiered at SXSW to critical acclaim, and went on to make its international premiere at Cannes Acid. Other notable festivals include Deauville, Marrakech, and Cameraimage. It was acquired and distributed by Utopia and holds an 100% rating on RottenTomatoes. Currently, she is writing her second feature, which she will also direct. Annabelle is a past Ivy Film Festival keynote speaker (2019), and this is her second year serving on the IFF Grand Jury.

Matthew Puccini

Matthew is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker. His short film Dirty had its World Premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection of the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Award for Acting. His short film Lavender premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Searchlight Pictures for an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run. It went on to screen at the 2019 SXSW, Aspen, Palm Springs, Outfest, and New Orleans film festivals, amongst others, and was nominated for Vimeo’s Best Drama of 2019. His previous short film The Mess He Made premiered at SXSW in 2017 and was a finalist for the Iris Prize. Matthew is a 2018 Sundance Ignite Fellow, a member of the 2017 New York Film Festival Artist Academy, a recipient of the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship and a Creative Culture Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center. He was selected as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 2019 25 New Faces of Independent Film and as one of Indiewire’s 25 LGBTQ Filmmakers On The Rise. He is currently developing his first feature film and in post-production on a short documentary.

Casey Sunderland

Casey Sunderland is an Agent in the Media Finance department at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Sunderland works in the Los Angeles office and specializes in packaging, sourcing financing for, and/or selling the distribution rights to independently financed films. Sunderland joined CAA in 2015. Sunderland graduated from Colgate University with a degree in Economics and Film & Media Studies.

Tight Spot 4min

Kevin Haefelin | Columbia University School of the Arts, USA

Shining the shoes of a walk-in customer, a shiner discovers his client’s dark secret.

Moth 17min

Shu Zhu | AFI Conservatory, USA

An Asian-American actress struggles to revive her career in the sexually commodified entertainment industry. In the wake of an impending transformation, we observe the banality of her daily routine as her mental state slowly deteriorates.

cw: flashing lights, sexual harrassment

Love Stories 7min

Elizabeth Myles | The University of Chicago, USA

Love stories told from multiple perspectives are brought to life by experimental animations in a touching exploration of what it means to experience love in this world.

I Draw on Everything 4min

Johanna Xue | New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, USA

A Chinese girl thinks about how people see her eyes.

cw: themes of racial discrimination

The Sisters 19min

Michał Hytroś | The Polish National Film,

Television and Theatre School in Lodz, Poland

Our protagonists – nuns Anuncjata and Benedykta - show us the world of the oldest enclosed convent in Poland in true colours, without stereotypes, often touching and amusing at the same time.

Aged and Confused 34min

Christina Shaman, Anakha Arikara | Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, USA

With 90 days left until he ages out of foster care, Alex Jimenez needs to find a home, or risk going back to the world he’s trying to escape.

cw: discussion of substance abuse

Christina Shaman and Anakha Arikara Co-Directors, Aged and Confused

“What is your advice to filmmakers that decide to take on such heavy topics?” Our main character, Alex, took a second to think and replied, “If you find yourself tearing up when you watch it, you’re doing something right.” That moment, sitting onstage with Alex at our first ever screening and Q&A, is something that still stays with us. When we first decided to start working together as students at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, we had no idea where we’d end up–we just knew that the foster care system was something we were both passionate about. We had no idea how lucky we’d be in meeting Alex Jimenez, a young foster youth on the brink of aging out, and just how profoundly he would impact us. In the four months we filmed with Alex, we teared up plenty. But we also laughed. Belly-tightening, cover-your-mouth-so-his-mic-doesn’t-pick-it-up type laughter. We were drawn to Alex as a character because of his natural ability to put those around him at ease with his humor. When we think back on those hot summer months, lugging our heavy equipment between Harlem and Queens almost daily to film our verité documentary, most of what we remember are the ways we all found humor, during one of the toughest transitions of this young man’s life. We think about the juxtaposition of watching Ali Wong’s comedy special from Alex’s phone while we sat with him before one of his last family court dates. Or when he compared his tumultuous teenage years to that time Britney Spears shaved her head in 2008. Or the many jokes from our film that we can now repeat verbatim. We learned a lot through the process of making our first documentary film. One of the biggest lessons was this: If you want to make a good documentary film, pick a good character. Then, take the time to bond with them, build their trust, share things about your life just as you are asking them to share things about theirs. And give yourself permission to laugh, cry, and experience every emotion that comes with this journey. We hope our audience allows themselves to go on this journey too. To laugh as much as they cry, to absorb information and be entertained at the same time, and to remember Alex’s story, long after the credits have rolled.

Kevin Haefelin

Director, Tight Spot Writing “Tight Spot” I was inspired by the scene of the barbershop in Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”. I thought it would be great to tell an ultrashort story partly visually and partly verbally, all driven by music. I also wanted to mix a contemporary feeling with a sort of film noir aspect. I developed the screenplay as part of my MFA studies at Columbia where the assignment was to make a short film between 3-5 minutes so it had to be simple and tight which was a very rewarding experience. We shot everything in 8 hours on location in New York City for a budget of only $500. It was intense because we were shooting in this small shoe repair shop, pressed by time, and had to take a break each time a customer entered. The only way to overcome this was to focus on the story and get to the chore of storytelling. We were very lucky to work with two extremely talented actors: New York based actor and comedian Sean-Michael Wilkinson with whom I developed the script’s dialogues through divers improvisations, and Academy Award nominee French actor Didier Flamand who starred in films by Raúl Ruiz, Claire Denis or Wim Wenders among many others. The duo created an offbeat scene which gave the film all its flavor and uniqueness.

Shu Zhu

Director, Moth

Johanna Xue

Director, I Draw on Everything On October 1st, 2019 in my dorm's hot and packed computer lab, I was thinking of this story about a girl whose parents immigrated to Hungary from China. Who, when she was 8, asked her mother: "What do other people see when they look at us?" This girl, who hid behind her drawings and paintings because she felt that these were at least things she could make that people liked. This girl, who thought she could never use makeup because her eyes weren't beautiful. This girl, who saw a woman yank her dog away from her because... This girl, who learned to be small; small enough to fit into places, small enough to not cause trouble. She thought that maybe if she became small enough, things wouldn't be like this. Things would be different. But maybe being small doesn't change anything after all. Maybe even if you're small, someone's still going to notice that tiny space you're taking up and tell you that you should go back to your own country. Maybe even if you're small, that security guard will still follow you around while you're shopping. Maybe even if you're small, people who think you don't understand what they're saying will talk about you while you're standing in line at the store. And when you've made yourself so small that even you begin not noticing yourself anymore, then, one day, you start wondering whether you've become invisible. When I moved to New York, I once heard someone tell me that I counted as white. It was strange to hear because back in Europe, I was always told that I was too not-white. To the person, perhaps this statement barely meant anything. But at the same time, it meant "I don't hear you. That girl in Hungary, I don't hear her story." Part of me didn't blame them because that's what I'd worked on for a very long time - to not be picked out. But when that happened, strangely, it hurt just as much as when they asked: “Why do you look different?” So I wrote this script and texted this actor, Lynette Chen, whom I met the previous week. Before "I Draw On Everything," I had always worked on very personal projects alone; I wasn’t even sure if I was confident enough to do it otherwise... But I had to step out of that because, at the end of the day, that is how we tell stories. We realize we don’t have to be small anymore. We find something within ourselves, maybe something we'd already buried deep, and share. We share, and share, and keep sharing. Then someone else takes this little something of ourselves, and looks at it, and puts it away, and maybe takes it out a little while later... And then, maybe someday, your actor turns to you and says: "I think our eyes are beautiful."

I moved to Hollywood to pursue my dream of being a filmmaker. This is where the industry is. Any coffee shop you go to, you can see people working on their latest screenplays, having production meetings, talking about the latest TV shows and releases. Aspiring actors, dancers, singers and influencers hustle hard in town, working their day jobs at restaurants and cafes, attending auditions, networking at social events. Walking down Hollywood walk of fame, you see people from all over the world taking pictures with the stars on the sidewalk. You see big premieres filled with celebrities. Hollywood is truly a dream factory. Everyone wants to make it, to break it in, even though most won’t be able to. The same “dream factory” is truly a battleground for unchecked desires. The structure of Hollywood and its power dynamic within has great potential to abuse these dreamers, who long to get the attention of important producers, executives, directors so they can partake in something great and eventually make a big name of themselves. Meanwhile, the people in power exploit the power structure to the max, using and abusing people’s dreams to make gains to their own personal satisfaction. The dreamers are vulnerable. The very nature of our industry means that we are all meant to be made into products to be consumed and digested, by audiences and executives alike. And that is especially true for people in front of a camera. The young and beautiful are often exploited, and while youth is no longer on your side, you are easily disposed and forgotten. The fear of failure constantly haunts everyone. And I especially feel it as a young filmmaker. What if I never succeed? What if I am soon forgotten? But at the same time, what is the nature of my dream? Is it fame? Validation? Love? What is the meaning of all this tireless pursuit? What is the end goal? Where are we going? How do we get there? Is there something more meaningful than this? These are the questions I wanted to explore in the making of Moth. In a way, we are making Moth as an ode to the dreams we all share, as artists living in Los Angeles, waiting for our metamorphosis, not knowing what we will be.

Elizabeth Myles

Director, Love Stories

ion I made in an experiLove Stories began as a one-minute collage animat UChicago. I cut up Vogue and art at k Wolnia Scott by taught course ion animat l menta having any real plan. I liked the magazines, noticed a love theme and went with it, not anything down. I didn't know glue to freedom that came with collage and not having it. This sort of blind faith is ing animat was I when like look would ion what the animat what I make but they come to l integra are scans ingrained in my process â&#x20AC;&#x201D; photos or In other words, I get to discover vision. exact an t withou often suite editing the in alive what I'm making as I make it. entary, the stories came When I decided to expand Love Stories into a docum e this film wouldn't becaus me to up d opene first. I'm so grateful to the people who and others were people I'd never family, some , friends were Some them. t withou exist ng five stories, but I narrowed it met before. A longer version of the film exists featuri were most in tune with each stories and down to the three where it felt like the visuals in my heart. place l specia a hold r foreve will stories the other. Still, all of l over what each frame I think of Love Stories as fate. Although I have contro ant part of my art signific a is player le invisib this that holds, accepting the role different on a random day, this practice. Sometimes I think that if I'd done one thing with how intimate it felt to create film may not have been born. In the end, I fell in love wed trusted me with intervie I people The animations for othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experiences. to have captured these lucky feel I and tell, could they only stories al person moments. I hope that the stories bring you love, Elizabeth â&#x2122;Ľ

2020 Grand Jury Selection

SYNCHRONICITY 4min Michelle Brand | Royal College of Art, UK

Pond 14min Tyler Macri | Ithaca College, USA

People come, people go - Yet everyone is moving in the same direction. We all are sharing something that we are unaware of, creating one big picture we are unable to see.

Elizabeth, ten years old, lives with her reclusive mother in a dilapidated apartment where fish infest the piping, surfacing by way of a drain in the bathtub.

Sophie 5min Anna Cangellaris | California Institute of the Arts,

USA

Sophie longs to be reborn while seeking to know her double. A party in the hills of Los Angeles offers a corporeal shift to her existence.

cw: flashing images

Sacromonte 16min

Cargo 15min Christina Tournatzés | Macromedia University of

Felix Chaoulideer | University of Chicago, USA

Applied Science, Germany

Shot in Granada, Spain, this short documentary explores the lives of Senegalese immigrants living in the caves of Sacromonte, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.

A gang of smugglers lets 71 people die in transit. As a smuggler convoy transports 71 people through Hungary, the people packed in the truck start screaming to open the doors. Despite their loud screams the driver follows his boss's order to Keep driving. The true story happened in 2015.

cw: themes of racial discrimination

By Day’s End 3min Pilar Garcia-Fernandeszsesma, Shelby Bernard |

Rhode Island School of Design, USA

Two mice make an afternoon meal, but a strange presence begins to pressure them as the day progresses.

cw: human trafficking, depictions of physical suffering

Emma Keehan | UW-Milwaukee, USA

Germany

Shadi Adib | Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg,

Memory Play 20min Lyndon Henley Hanrahan, Chloe Anna Brooks, Mitchell Polonsky | Havard University, USA

A cycle of pursued acceptance met by rejection is threatened when one character sees the world for what it truly is.

A mousetrap snaps shut, a market place awakens. A group of men heatedly discuss how to kill the animal in the little box.

Aseminal play about a troubled St. Louis family is staged at 1:48 scale. As the narrative unfolds, the boundaries of memory which enclose it betgin to disintegrate.

Ouroboros 8min

Fuse 7min

cw: highly profane language

Lyndon Hanrahan

Co-Director, Memory Play Memory Play was an exercise in working with what you’ve got, both practically and imaginatively. We are three extremely close friends—a theatre director, a film director, and an actor—with different artistic skillsets but a shared sense of taste. Once we had decided to make a film together, we got to thinking about everything we had at our disposal. These things included, in no particular order: a love of theatrical sets and staging, a fair amount of experience interpreting dramatic texts, a versatile actor, an iPhone, and a room in a basement (cockroaches very much included). So the biggest choice of the movie—to stage The Glass Menagerie in miniature, at 1:48 scale—was born of necessity; without the money, space, or actors required to film a play at full scale, we thought we just might be able to make it work if we shrunk everything down. Smaller film set, fewer problems . . . we thought. We chose The Glass Menagerie because we wanted to stage a play that would be thematically relevant, and dramaturgically connected, to this miniature premise. Every subsequent decision, it seemed, arose in response to the requirements we had set ourselves. We gained firsthand experience in the expression, “necessity is the mother of invention.” Need a pan up the body of a character who’s only an inch tall? Just attach her with clay to one end of a toilet-paper-roll-holder and slowly press down on the spring, of course! Want to show a snowy dreamscape on film when you have no money? Put your tiny figurines on a cake-spinner, start sifting flour gently over it, and let her rip! In all seriousness, this was a very important project for the three of us, in no small part because of the creative work that went into it. We love Tennessee Williams’ characters, and hoped above all to breathe life into them—to prove that they shouldn’t be relegated to theatrical period pieces, and to make them urgently and heart-wrenchingly alive to contemporary audiences. We poured our imaginations, our senses of humor, and our literal blood, sweat and tears into the making of the film—not to mention what little dignity and eyesight we shared between the three of us before we started sculpting, painting, and lighting teeny-tiny people on teeny-tiny stage. To those few friends who stopped by that basement room, and, through a cloud of Raid and the scuttle of energetic cockroaches, saw us crouched over a miniature theatre less than a foot square, we must have seemed mad. But no less beautifully mad than Laura, in love with her magical world of glass, or Amanda, in love with the idealized Blue Mountain of her past, or Tom, in love with the family he once had, we hope.

Tyler Macri

Director, Pond

As a child, if I were called to explain myself for misbehavior, I’d often make up an absurd or grotesque story with the goal of shutting the conversation down. Tall tales were a way to eschew distressing realities — things I hadn’t developed the emotional vocabulary to politely summarize for others when things were particularly rough at home. A few of the weirder lies I told back then stuck with me, and as time went on, I got the idea that it may be interesting to turn one of them into a film. Pond’s premise came this way. It was an instance where I’d justified being a nuisance in class (around fifth grade) by claiming that my house’s plumbing had somehow become infested with tiny fish, that I’d been up all night helping my family deal with the immense issue, and that I’d only been mean to my friends because I was stressed and had underslept. I’ve always been interested by the way those bizarre stories came about — the way, as a child squirming under pressure for explication from others, the oblique path was instinctively more appealing to me when they put me on the spot. Many times since I’ve felt a similar way, sitting down to plan a film or photography project. The main character in Pond is also a child. She is distressed, scared even. Maybe these are her recollections; maybe they’re her attempt to convey something to you, the audience. Rightly, not all of it is pleasant. Despite that, I hope you find a way to connect with her in an immediate and sensory way, perhaps taken through channels that a more linear, realist form of filmmaking may not have had the tools to approach.

Michelle Brand

Director SYNCHRONICITY The film is loosely based on ideas around Synchronicity, which believes that there is such a thing as meaningful coincidences. Less to do with fate, it’s about how there perhaps is a greater connection to things that seem to meet for no particular reason. It’s about the connection between ourselves and others, and our world and the bigger world out there. I got really fascinated with this idea for a very long time, especially because, while it means that we are all little ants floating around out there, we aren’t floating around alone. We are constantly, consciously or unconsciously, moving in and out of little spheres of other people’s lives, creating one universal big picture that we are unaware of, because we are too small to see it, and are part of the picture ourselves. The film became like a visual thought process, discussing these philosophical ideas, and it turned into an instrument to capture overlapping moments in time and space between me and strangers forever. The audio that can be heard in the film are recordings of me walking past people and capturing glimpses of their conversations, yet they remain unintelligible. So in a sense, the film carries on overlapping forever, between myself and the strangers, between the strangers and the audience, between me and the audience, between little ants and big spheres.

Emma Keehan

Director, Ouroboros Perhaps somewhat ironically, Ouroboros has led me deep into the study of the power of myth and story. While making the film until its first screening, I simply considered it a fun and challenging project that seemed to have turned out well. However, audience feedback from film festivals around the world describing deep, emotional connections to the story has made me realize that Ouroboros is something much greater than I had intended at the outset. For so many of us, myself included, the story within Ouroborus offers to open us to deeper and more subtle truths. I am honored and humbled to have been part of the collaborative effort that brought this tale to the screen. A team endeavor, Ouroborus began as an assignment in film school. We all contributed our strengths, and I am grateful to have been elected to direct. To initiate the script, we selected a book from the classroom shelf, flipped it open at random, and that page became the foundation for the film. (I truly wish I could remember the name of that dusty, old tome we took off the shelf in the basement of Kenilworth Hall.) We had an extremely tight budget and we fabricated most of our props or pulled them from our homes or those of our parents. Many of us spent many hours paper machéing the masks, after first collecting milk and juice jugs from nearby nursery schools. Costuming came mostly from my family's closets and to this day it is fun to watch the short with them as it always sparks fun reminiscences about when, where, and why certain items came to be in our wardrobes. Every time I watch the film, I am nudged by the story itself to consider the precious quality of voice. I feel it prodding me to use mine and to support those around me who feel they must be silent. I am reminded, also, of the great power that often lays dormant in silence, which, when activated, bursts forth and forever changes the environment. I am called to contemplate what is being asked of me in the moment - to use my voice or incubate silently. And, perhaps most importantly, I recall the balance between voice and silence and how they enhance each other in their eternal cycle.

Felix Chaoulideer

Director, Sacromonte Five years ago, in the spring of 2015, I was visiting Granada, Spain for a few days. For the most part, I did what every tourist does; I saw the breath-taking Alhambra and the massive cathedral, I walked for hours through the narrow, winding roads of the Albaicín, and I ate gazpacho. On my last evening in Granada, I walked up the steep hills of Sacromo nte, where there are hundreds of caves with mythic origins, dating back hundreds of years. Now, the caves are mostly tourist sites where visitors can experience “authentic” Flamenco , which supposedly originated among the Romani who lived in the caves. But farther along the mountainside, I heard singing and drumming coming from another cave, one without any signs or tourists. There, a group of men warmly welcome d me into their circle, offering me food and handing me a small drum to play along. We didn’t talk much, but they told me they were from Senegal. The next morning I left, but kept wonderin g about these guys. Why were they here? Did they live in the caves? How and why did they make me feel so welcome? How do they survive? No one could answer my questions, and everything I could read about Sacromonte or the caves told only about Romani history and the current memorialization of that history—nothing about the caves’ current inhabitants. Last year I was lucky enough to be able to return to Granada, hoping to answer those questions. I had no way of getting in contact with them, but I remembered where they were. So, together with a friend, I set off for Sacromonte, hoping that I might be able to encounter the men again and explore my questions through a short film. They were still there, and their welcome was just as warm. In my first days, my experience was much what I remembered and expected—celebration, drinking, yelling, joy. But as I came back, day after day, sitting with them outside their caves in the blazing Granadia n sun for hours and hours, the idyllic veil of a simple, happy life was lifted. These young men had left Senegal to make money for their families, but had encountered some difficulty or another in Europe. Some had lost their jobs, others their wives. Others didn’t have the proper documen tation. Without a place to go, and without wanting to return home defeated, they found the caves of Sacromonte as their temporary sanctuary. Now, a group of about fifteen Senegalese men live in a few of the caves overlooki ng Granada, inhabiting a complicated world of powerful community, persecut ion and racism, hope and despair. A few of these men—some of the warmest, most talented people I’ve met—allowed me a bit further into their life and their world. Sacromonte is my attempt to meditate on that complicated world—its beauty and its tragedy.

The Goddess 7min Renkai Tan | New York University, USA Basing on true events in China, The Goddess tells the story of a sexu al assault survivor, who was attacked by her Uber driver, seeking her own justic e through revenge.

cw: discussion of sexual assault, gun violence

“Stunned I Remain Alert 15min Henrique Amud, Lucas H. Rossi dos Santos |

Universidade Estácio de Sá - Rio

de Janeiro, Brasil

Journalist Dermi Azevedo has neve r stopped fighting for human right s and now, three decades after the end of the military dictatorship in Brazil, he's witnessing the return of those same practices.

cw: depictions and discussion of violence and torture

Out of Pocket 7min Nicolaia Rips, Jonathan Hagedorn |

Brown University, USA

Best friends Elena, June, and Aliso n spend a wild night trying to retrie ve a regrettably misplaced picture.

Under the Blanket 15min Kardelen Eren | Dokuz Eylul Unive rsity Facul

ty of

Fine Arts, Turkey

honeyheart 6min Alice Langlois | Rhode Island Schoo

USA

Yankı is a 17 year old gay boy. He is under pressure because of his sexual orientation from the neighborhood and his mother. One day, his mom and a neighbor decide to solve this prob lem.

l of Design,

Nestled in her cozy tree trunk hom e, a bird goes about her day when a wild honeybee flies into her house and sends her on a strange and tumultuous journey.

cw: depicitions of homophobia

I See in the Dark 16min Lana Bregar | Academy of Theatre,

and Television, Slovenia

Radio, Film

The short documentary shows three individuals who have lost their sight . Their intimate narrative takes the view er on a journey to their world and feelings about the loss of vision.

Gabriel 20min Yousef Kargar | TMU of Tehran, Iran Gabriel is a middle-aged man who lives with his son. His wife has been lost for some time. All the people are susp icious about her. One day news comes to him and he has to choose one: expe diency or conscience?!

Alice Langlois

Director, honeyheart honeyheart was born out of my love of nature and a summer full of anxiety. In the months preceding my senior year of college, I struggled to find inspiration for my thesis film among the concrete grids of New York City. Having grown up in a rural town in Massachusetts, I became lonely and filled with dread as I pursued an internship in the foreign cityscape of Brooklyn. Despite finding joy in my job and visiting any green spaces I could find, I only felt lost and exhausted as my senior year began. Wracking my brain for thesis ideas, I began to worry if I would ever come up with anything at all. I thought back to my strange summer, during which I developed a small project to raise awareness for bee populations. I promptly immersed myself in researching bees, beekeeping, and their cultural history. A character began to emerge amidst my notes and sketches: a peaceful bird turned skittish from a colony of honeybees inhabiting her hive-like heart. Instead of facing and accepting her anxiety, she suppresses it until a wild honeybee infiltrates the colony and draws them out of her body all at once. I started composing music, sculpting puppets, sewing and building and drawing... I felt for this little bird-version of myself and wanted to try to share my experience with anxiety through my weird, poetic, and whimsical language of stop-motion animation. Beyond this character, I had finally found my newest ecological inspiration: honeyheart was an exciting opportunity to explore the fantastically complex world of bees; their intricate dances, the frequency at which they buzz, and the beautiful structures they create. This film was also a wonderful collaboration with the RISD Nature Lab and RISD Beekeeping Club- I could not have done this without them. Through the Nature Lab I was able to capture photos of bees, honey, and other objects I collected at a microscopic level to make textural animations with their exquisite forms. The Beekeeping Club allowed me to explore their hives for myself, donning protective gear to record buzzing for the soundtrack and seeing the bees go about their work up close. The honey and wax I used in honeyheart was also produced by these bees, making even the base materials of this animation personal and special. As with all of my work, I hope that honeyheart gives you a sense of wonder for nature, a feeling of its magic, because I am experiencing it all the time and I am constantly trying to share that feeling with the world. Deeper than that, I hope that even through its abstraction and metaphors, you will find a familiar struggle. A struggle to accept yourself, to take care of yourself, and the sometimes daunting steps it takes to heal and move forward with triumph.

Lana Bregar

Director, I See In The Dark After completing the film, a mother of a young blind boy said to me: â&#x20AC;&#x153;What I really like about this film is that it is portraying their time for the first time correctly.â&#x20AC;? It stuck with me ever since. Our world depends on visual interpretation - from shopping, traffic, to films at the end. As film is such a visual media, I often thought about losing my sight. The fear of being blind led me to the story about people, who lost it later in life. I thought it must have been hard for them, being deprived from something they had. I wondered about losing my tool as a Filmmaker. And as much as I wondered, the more I was discovering their magical world. Full of colors, voices, smells, sounds and shapes. It opened a completely new world to them. And later to me for which I am grateful, because I got a little part of it in my film. In the last interview, Mia put it like that; Blindness is not darkness. It is something different. It is a way, which people cannot see. It is my light. I get it now - all they need is a little extra time. And the film is about that. It is about taking time for yourself. It is about hope in yourself. It is about independence. It is about being proud of yourself. And for me, it is letting go of a tiniest bit of my fear. And I hope that for you, it will be about saying, I can.

Henrique Amud

Co-Director, Stunned I Remain Alert "Stunned, I Remain Alert" is a film about the horrors of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the point of view of a journalist who was tortured in the 1970s and now lives with Parkinson’s Disease. But it is also about our present life in Brazil, when history might be repeated by a far-right government that praises torture and openly disregards minorities. We lost ourselves in the editing bay, in pursuit of an experience that could extrapolate the facts with a visual exploration of history, horror, grief and the decay of the human body.

Nicolaia Rips

Co-Director, Out of Pocket This is my first co-directing credit and I feel incredibly lucky to have worked with such a wonderful team. We created this in 48 hours, averaging an hour of sleep or so. Everyone did two or three jobs—editing, writing, holding boom mics, acting, all on a moment’s notice, and yet there was no shortage of hugs and good humor. Out of Pocket is a testament to the talent of its crew.

Yousef Kargar

Director, Gabriel

The first elements of interest in cinema for me started when I was about 9 years old, the day that I went to [the cinema] to watch a film with my allowance and I watched Where Is the Friend ’s Home? directed by Abbas Kiarostami five conse cutive times. [Years later], I found myself as a cinephile and watching films from around the world [got me interested in] writing about them. In 2006, I started to hold film screening sessions, and in 2009, I attended [the] course of film directing in the Young Journalists Club owned by the IRIB and passed that course with perfec t point. Then I started to writing scripts for other [people] and also won some awards in festiva ls for my scripts. Then I attended [a] filmmaking works hop presented by Abbas Kiarostami that changed my view in cinema. After that I realize d that I’m a lot more interested in fiction cinem a. In April 2016, I attended [the] Fajr International Film Festival talent campus (Dar ul-funun) and passe d that course with masters like Asghar Farhadi and Alaxandre Sokurov. [That] same year I [was] invited to be [a juror] in some festivals. [From] 2011 to 2019 I made seven short films that were selected in many international festivals aroun d the world and won about 100 awards [at] Grand Prix of 35th Busan international short film festiva l and qualified to the Academy Awards 2019. I finished my master degree in cinema (directing) in 2019. My last film Gabriel is an inner journey of a faithful and loving man who has stood up to the old, misguided and inhumane belief s and traditions that come from the rural culture in which he lives. The journey that tells us that sometimes the intensity of love can be harmf ul and [comes] at the cost of destroying the belove d. This trip torments Gabriel in the face of the result of his love, his son. A torment that puts him in a difficult dilemma: [does] he have to think for himse lf and hide the truth, or does he have to remai n faithful and act like a dried-up lake due to the environmental problems that have made him unemployed? Sacrifice his conscience and make the future the product of his love, his son? A very difficult and vital decision... The issue of death and dealing with it has always been important, strange and, of course, sacred to me. Like all my previous films, Death is present in this film too, but to understand it from different angles and judge about that, we have to put ourselves in the place of all the characters in the film to see if what Gabriel did and now has to pay back is love or following the wrong cultur e and slander to people who behave differently from us or have different culture? The lake, which is gradually becoming drier, may be a symbol of Gabriel himself, who will surrender to fate over time but will remain in love forever. Yours faithfully, Yousef Kargar

Undergrad Short Vivaldi’s Summer

Ben Connor Brown University Logline: In the space of a week, a piece of classical music becomes a nightmare melody for one unfortunate student. Testimonial: I had a song stuck in my head for a wildly long time, which was the germ of the idea for Vivaldi’s Summer. My song was less highbrow than a piece of classical music, and nothing particularly interesting happened to me because of it, but it got me thinking about the power music can hold over us, especially when we can hear music that no one else can. The writing process for this script came as close as I ever will to the glamorous writer’s bolt of inspiration that we see in movies. I was on a plane ride to Alaska when the idea struck, and wrote a plot outline on the back of a United Airlines napkin, which I still have (not because of the outline, just because I really like United Airlines). Then I holed myself up for a few hours during our family vacation and typed out the draft. It was fast and a lot of fun to write, much as I hope it is to read!

Baha Blast

Eli Kaplan Brown University Logline: After a night of partying, two friends must recover a valuable item before it’s too late. Testimonial: I wrote this screenplay after my hearing aid -- as if at once gaining sentience and a death wish -- popped out of my head and fell into a storm drain. This loss made me realize how much I love my hearing aid, and I wanted to write a story centered around that feeling. I’ve never really seen my disability represented in media, so I wanted to portray an honest version of how disability can fit into

someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life; that it is part of but not the entirety of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity (you can be dumb, gay, and half deaf). I based a lot of thisscreenplay on my own experiences, and writing Baha Blast has meant a lot to me!

Supernormal Activity

Ben Morris Brown University Logline: The story of two writers haunted by their own television show. Testimonial: I am a firm believer in the power of performance to change public opinion for the better. Growing up, I was introduced to many important issues of our day through different forms of media. Television and film created a safe and enjoyable space for me to grapple with these issues and formulate my own opinions. That being said, the entertainment industry still has a long way to go in terms of accessibility. Through Supernormal Activity, I hope to create a space for people to laugh at and contemplate the homogenous and materialistic state of the entertainment industry. I want people to be aware of where the stories they watch come from and who is presenting them. Entertainment is an incredibly powerful medium, and my hope is that content creators will use their influence to spark interand intrapersonal conversations and lead the world to become a more open and accepting place. In order to get to this place, however, we need to acknowledge the flaws within the industry, and what better way to do that than with laughter?

Undergrad Feature The Monsters Around Us

Dylan Dameron Columbia University Logline: Pete is thrown into the world of monster preservation after a chance encounter with veteran monster enthusiast, Hank. The two must work together to protect the creatures the world perceives as myths and legends. Testimonial: THE MONSTERS AROUND US is about finding purpose through helping

others. At its core, the story is about exploring an unknown world through a comedic voice. I have always sought to use humor as a tool to either teach

lessons or motivate individuals. The characters in this story undergo tremendous change, but not without us laughing at or with them at times. THE MONSTERS AROUND US is a comedy about monsters, the people who hunt them, and the people who protect them. I strongly believe in the world-building element of screenwriting and how it’s most effective way to tell stories. I want readers to invest in the world of the film, which will in turn invest them in the characters. The environment of this story is meant to feel recognizable, but distant at the same time. Myths were a huge part of my childhood. I loved watching every cheesy and halfproduced urban legend movie I could find. I’ve always been fascinated with the origin of creatures like the Chupacabra, Bigfoot, Thunderbird, and countless others. Me and my siblings would even venture into our backyard trying to hunt down any mythological creature we could find. Sadly, we weren’t as successful as Pete. Combining my nerdy obsession with Cryptids with my love for animals, I conjured up this story of monster-preservationists. In a way, Pete is the audience’s ticket into the story. He goes from being naïve of the monsters around him to fully aware of their near-extinct existence. As Pete discovers this new reality, he also discovers himself. He misunderstands the creatures at first, but soon learns that they deserve to live just like us. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I hope you laugh and enjoy the wild world of THE MONSTERS AROUND US!

McDonald's Massacre

Brandon Young Kent State University Logline: The time is July of 1984. A drug-busting, divorced head sheriff has only two days to lead the investigation to find a possible motive for the worst mass shooting is US history. CW: Gun violence Testimonial: Ever since I was a little kid, I knew I was going to be a storyteller. I wrote a lot of “scripts” when I was young and even made silly short films everyday after school. As I grew older, I started to make up stories that were more personal and along the lines of what I wanted to see in movie theaters. I want to introduce people to something they have never seen before. I want to give them the night off that they deserve and a break from their stressful lives. I want them to feel joy whenever

they sit down and watch one of my stories, but also be on the edge of their seat. This script is a representation of all of these elements. My script, McDonaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Massacre, is about a drug-busting, loose- cannon head sheriff, Miguel, who has only two days to lead the investigation to find a possible motive for the worst mass shooting in US history. The excerpt you are about to read takes place after the viewer finds out that Miguel was the first on the scene of the crime. This is the first witness statement that Miguel is hearing to start his investigation. When I write scripts, I usually shelve them for a rainy day. I turned this script in for my class "Scriptwriting for Video and Film," and my professor loved it and told me not to change a thing. After I told people about the script, a lot of people wanted to read it. I sent the script to about six people I trusted, and got a tremendous amount of positive feedback from it. With these people pushing me, I decided to take a leap of faith and submit the script to different screenwriting competitions, just to see if it would go anywhere. I honestly didn't expect this to happen, even as a college student. Thank you for being a part of my journey. It means the world to me that you are reading my script as part of the Ivy Film Festival. You are making a young writerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s childhood dream come true.

Mudcup

Alexandra Foultz Emerson College Logline: When the loyal daughter of an Ozark outlaw falls for a spirited hitchhiker, she must decide between pursuing a future with her father or one of uncertainty, but greater hope. Testimonial: I wrote Mudcup as a way to achieve catharsis. The summer I started writing, I had been experiencing an uncomfortably intense and prolonged period of gay panic. As someone who traditionally had a stifling and iron-fisted grip on their emotions, it became clear to me that these feelings were not something I was entirely equipped to deal with. In my stead, I let Mudcup and its heroine, Frances, sort things out for me.

The story’s primary conflict comes from Fran’s dividing loyalty, which becomes stretched thin between her father and her romantic confidante, Leni. The relationship between Frances and her father was an important one for me to focus on since I was dealing with my own version of it at home. Having a conservative father who I share a similar emotional temperament with created an internal conflict within me when I went to college, where the environment was exceptionally progressive and critical of oppositional perspectives. At school, I felt protective of him, and at home, I felt myself watching his words more closely and challenging him on his beliefs. Like Fran, I found my loyalties very much divided. By setting the story in a fictional town, I was allowed to carve the space into an external representation of Fran’s subjective and inner self. In this way, I felt I could visually justify Frances’ feelings of isolation, loneliness, and therefore her stubborn loyalty to her troubled father. Fictionalizing the town and its characters allowed me to focus on the emotions - the hope, desire, and fear - I was feeling and letting run amok in my imagination. This need to distance myself from the subject matter is also what drove me to structure the script into chapters - to remind myself of the story’s fictionality. Writing this script has helped me tremendously, and while I may still be figuring myself out, I am comfortable knowing that my father’s affection toward me will not change no matter how much I might. I am very grateful for that. This story is dedicated to him and the debates between us that have yet to come.

Grad Short Violette Hayes: A True Story

Giancarlo Fusi Mount Saint Mary University Logline: High school buds drive to the prom down a lonely road in the Florida Keys where they encounter a beautiful and mysterious girl who will change their lives forever.

Boy Becomes Man

Samuel P Parker Emerson College Logline: A man recounts a series of events from his first childhood hunt. Testimonial: Boy Becomes Man is a short screenplay about a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recollection of his first hunt, the trophy he received, and the innocence he lost along the way. This story came to fruition while I was trail running in the forest behind my home in central Massachusetts. The autumn leaves had taken on the vibrant orange, red, and yellows New England is known for. These colors were a reminder to be weary of those who roam the woods for sport. As the realization that I could be mistaken for a deer came over me I began to envision myself being struck down by a hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bullet on the trail and left to die. This vision became the inspiration behind Boy Becomes Man. Enjoy.

Juliet's Girlfriend

Kate McGroaty Emerson College Logline: A queer catholic boarding school student thinks she's found the way to make it out of high school unscathed until a new student arrives and turns her world upside down. Testimonial: High School is a maze for any student. It's a time of questioning, discovery and what we all look back on as terrible fashion choices. It's a precious chapter in anyone's life to experience love and romance for the first time. But what is a young person supposed to do if their perfect romance is detested by the adults around them? So often the answer is that these young loves wither before they can sprout. These young lovers lose out on their chance to experience the joys, dramas, and lessons of young love. I remember the first time I saw the prayer in bold, black and white lettering. Before that, it started as an occasional group prayer. Then it grew into a weekly prayer at the conclusion of mass. Finally, the prayer was pasted into the front cover of every hymnal in the church: the prayer to keep marriage between a man and a woman. Every time I saw it, I grew a four hundred pound pit in the base of my stomach. My faith meant everything to me when I was 17. I believed my faith was the path to spiritual enlightenment, but at the same time I was trapped in a body I didn't understand

with desires I was taught to fear. This conflict played at a low hum throughout my entire adolescence. I was able to find comfort in the performing arts. Shakespeare transported me to fantastic worlds filled with mischievous sprites and murderous royals. I found strength in his fantastic worlds of possibility but still, I didn't see myself in his pages. His work felt like the perfect backdrop for the story I wanted to tell. "Juliet's Girlfriend" is a love letter to all the queer kids out there who feel trapped in the same spot I was: between wanting to be "good" and wanting to be true to oneself. The truth is that in matters of love, that's a false choice. The act of authentically loving another, in whatever form that takes, is spiritually right. Luckily the tides are turning and I can see that today's generation of queer high school students are receiving more support than they did even a decade ago. And yet, I know there are still pockets of misunderstanding. My aim with this piece was to write a gentle love story for young queer women to see that they are so deserving of the pursuit and discovery of love. And I pray that those who don't see the importance of allowing all forms of young love to grow will see the light. Just kidding. I don't pray anymore. I write.

Grad Feature Extraordinary Terrestrials

Zachary Smolar NYU Tisch School of the Arts Logline: When her brother disappears under mysterious circumstances, sixteenyear-old Venus becomes convinced he was abducted by aliens, and sets out to find them and bring her brother back to Earth. Testimonial: I've been watching Ancient Aliens since I was young, flipping through the channels and finding it as a happy accident on the History channel. I rediscovered it recently and, scrolling through all the episodes, I was overwhelmed by the fact that it seemed endless. That you could watch nothing but this show if you wanted. I was also disappointed to find how easily I could poke holes in the logic of the show, how easy it was to say that they were wrong and aliens haven't visited Earth. My writing instincts tend to lead me toward comedy. One version of this script could

have been slapstick, a group of alien hunters who were led by the "Extra(ordinary) Terrestrials" gospel of Tara Levin. As is obvious from even the first five pages of this script, that didn't happen here. This is a sad movie. It's about denial, grief, death, and mental illness. And even when Venus grows, when she learns to accept and move on with her life, it's a painful process. The climax hurts. It's about something that's supposed to be fun, supposed to be entertainment, but instead becomes something that wrecks Venus, holds her back. In retrospect, it didn't even have to be aliens that Venus becomes obsessed with. Tara's show is what Venus latches onto, but that's only because it's the most obvious thing. It's the thing that's there, right in front of her. It's the first thing she finds that makes her life easier, and she grabs it and doesn't let go. I think this script can strike a chord with people because everyone knows what that's like, to stick with something because it's easier than not sticking with it. That's why it's a painful movie; it's too easy to imagine yourself as Venus. The first thing I thought of when I started planning this script was the character, someone who believes every word "Extra(ordinary) Terrestrials" claims. My hope for her is that, years later, rediscovering the show by some happy accident, she realizes how silly it all is.

Ardon Park

H. S. Fishbrook Pepperdine University Logline: Two men with interchangeable names alter the fate of two debt-ridden sisters, even as a cryptic gunslinger tailers after them through the English countryside. Testimonial: This story is largely inspired by my experiences as an undergrad in college. I had the tremendous opportunity to spend a semester in Great Britain, studying the gems of Old English theater: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Aphra Behn, and the like. I spent my days either at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-Upon-Avon, or the Globe Theater in London, or the picturesque wilds of the Lake District. It was a marvelous time, when I would wake up each morning and pinch myself â&#x20AC;&#x201C; was this all a dream? I was taking workshops in dramaturgy, acting, directing, stage fighting, dancing, costume design, musical history, and much, much more! By the time the program was finished and I had returned to the States, the idea for Ardon Park was born.

Ardon Park combines the beauty of the English countryside with the glamor of its history, the chivalry of its people, and the romance of its classic literature. It is essentially a love letter to allthings Old English. (Hence, the name Ardon, which has ties to the word “ardent.”) By the time I landed in graduate school, I finally had gained the artistic wherewithal to revise my original draft. In the process I came to genuinely enjoy and celebrate rewriting, because each new draft – even if it’s draft number 99 – promises a clearer, fuller, and more beautiful view of the story. It was also during this period that the story’s theme became more apparent: truth has a power of its own, and this truth will always find its way to the surface. It cannot be hid for ever. Since receiving my Master’s degree, I have shared the script with a few, select parties who have shown interest. It may be noteworthy to share that I did eventually connect with a company in Los Angeles who was willing to shop this script around town for me and “package” it, meaning that they were willing to share the script with their contacts, and try to find actors, producers, perhaps a director, who would sign onto the project and get the project greenlit. As it turned out, they asked me to pay them for their time, with an upfront retainer of $5,000. I politely declined the offer, and less than 3 months later the Writers Guild of America and the Association of Talent Agents broke out into a nation-wide standoff over this very subject: packaging. Ardon Park was a great joy to write, and I hope it brings you joy as well.

Something Old, Something New

Kate McGroaty Emerson College Logline: Two women about to plan the wedding of their dreams struggle with the expectations of their formerly homophobic, annoyingly supporting parents. Testimonial: When my wife and I started planning our wedding two years ago, we were completely unprepared for the feelings the process brought to the surface. We consider ourselves pretty tough gals. We have gone through the hard process of coming out and making peace with ourselves and our relationships with our sexuality. Our parents may have struggled at one time, but when we got engaged they were giant love bugs of acceptance. So then... why was imaging ourselves in a wedding so emotionally draining?

The wedding industry is still largely a heteronormative space. Remember all the controversy recently about two lesbians getting married in a Zola commercial on the Hallmark channel? For a moment, the hallmark channel actually removed the ad! There are so many people out there who do not want to see same-sex couples in the wedding industry. It makes sense that same-sex couples themselves have complicated feelings about their presence in that space. Is it a betrayal to the cause to want a conventional wedding? Is it radical to force ourselves into that space? Is it an opportunity to force our community to take our love seriously? Are we lying to ourselves about it being radical and instead we're still trying to present ourselves as the most perfect, most love deserving versions of ourselves? The act of putting LGBTQ love on display is wrapped up in complicated and deeply personal layers. So why not have some fun with it, eh? Something Old, Something New is a script inspired by the complicated feeling that arose during my own wedding process. The characters and situations are complete fabrications. Fortunately for me and my wife, everyone in our lives got along too well for a compelling drama. But I struggled with my internal feelings on a weekly basis. In my dream of dreams, Something Old, Something New will be made someday so same-sex couples can watch it with their family and friends as a part of the excitement around their upcoming wedding. I hope it makes them laugh, makes them excited and maybe occasionally starts an important conversation or two about what really matters in the process. This script is dedicated to my incredible wife and our loving parents.

Pilot Welcome to You

Courtney Burness Emerson College Logline: After taking an at-home ancestry test, a college dropout discovers that her father is not related to her - and her biological father is arrested for murder using her familial DNA as evidence. Testimonial: When I was a kid, I was obsessed with The Princess Diaries. So much so, that I was convinced someday, someone would tell me I wasn't who I thought I was. That in my blood, I was destined for something amazing. When I took my own at-home DNA test, a little part of me wondered if that moment might finally happen.

It didn't, it just told me what I already knew: I am very white. With Welcome To You, I wanted to tell a story about a woman desperate to be anyone but who she really is - Edie, a college dropout working at Trader Joe's, stuck living with her dad in her shitty hometown. After taking her ancestry test, Edie gets exactly what she wanted, in exactly the way that she didn't. She got a new life - but what she didn't realize, was that meant losing everything about her old life she actually liked - her dad, her heritage; her whole identity. Welcome To You is a timely approach to the age-old question, "What defines family?"

360 VR Video Selection

Backstroke

Abby Thompson | Hamline University, USA

Dinners

Ana Vijdea | Syracuse University, USA

So Long, and Thanks for all the Compute

Stephanie Claudino Daffara and Brian Aronowitz |

University of

California, Berkeley, USA

Solace: VR360Ë&#x161;

Brenda Tan Zi Jie | Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore

#IRL

Eman Al-Zubeidi, Anna Chernikova, EunSun Chu, | Texas A&M University, USA

Krislyn Koehn, Austin Payne

Brenda Tan Zi Jie

Solace: VR360 Â° Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore Solace was my first film done in VR360. A story written within a short period of time due to certain complications. However since it's a VR film, I thought it's ideal to evoke the audience with thrills and horror in the story. This short story speaks of how we as human beings could be suffering from a certain illness/issue, but at the same time we neglected how someone else akin could be hurting and fighting through a tougher battle on their own than we do. With that, we lose them while trying to heal ourselves. Directing a film is probably out of my comfort zone since I handle mostly technical works in my recent years but it was a different experience for my team and I, including tedious post production work. It's not the best final product but I think we did our best for our first time as final year students. Nevertheless, I hope this film sends you chills down your spine.

Stephanie Claudino Daffara and Brian Aronowitz

So Long, and Thanks for all the Compute University of California, Berkeley, USA

We created So Long, and Thanks for all the Compute in our final semester of college. As Computer Science graduates on paper, but artists at heart, we wanted to express the emotional rollercoaster that studying Computer Science at our University was. We wrote this film the semester after spending almost every day together creating an augmented reality museum installation. That summer we worked, coded, ate, ran, did everything together. We truly understand each other's artistic and scientific sides. Our film was intended as a technical and artistic exploration of machine learning art. Can machines make art? Or are they just another tool for true artists to create with? We started by building out a visual library of 40 styles to work from by creating short snippets of 360 videos stylized with Neural Style Transfer. After that we wrote the script for the story, structuring our scenes around the look and feel of our style library. We found some styles were flickery and ominous and felt like the anxiety of finishing school, while others were smooth and surreal, and reminded us of what calm dreams felt like. We structured our story around these feelings: and we were happy to realize that our end result conveyed these feelings in a way which neither style transfer nor 360 could do on its own. Some fun facts: The lecture scene was shot in our final lecture for CS194 Computation Photography , the class we created this film as a project for. We meant to include the standing ovation at the end of the lecture, but our camera wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t on. Also the style image used for the exam scene was a screenshot of the LaTeX midterm template that all Computer Science professors at Berkeley use. Just that image on its own is anxiety inducing for any Berkeley student. You can read more about the science behind our project here: https://bit.ly/ThanksForCompute. Go bears!