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PROGRAM MON TUE WED THU FRI
04.17.17 04.18.17 04.19.17 04.20.17 04.21.17
YALE FILM ALLIANCE
PRIZE JURORS
Benjamin Steinberg / director Dane Underwood / treasurer Anna Rose Canzano / festival coordinator Sophia Haid / publicity coordinator Abbey Burgess / events coordinator Emma Keyes / webmaster THE YALE STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL 2017 Anna Rose Canzano / director Joshua van Biema / incoming director Elaine Wang / assistant director Solia Hoegl / event coordinator Muriel Wang / event coordinator Trevor Shim / publicity and outreach Anna Wane / technical coordinator YSFF17 PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE Joshua van Biema / director of programming Sophia Haid Louisa Cone Filip Sestan Jack Kyono Mariah Kreutter Noah Goodman Panchalay Chalermkraivuth Rebecca Shoptaw Yvonne Ye
Jim Lande / independent film producer Jeanine Kim / founder and artistic director, Women & Fashion FilmFest, the Girls Film Festival, and SHE WEBFest Brian Price / screenwriter, screenwriting teacher, and independent director Bilge Ebiri / film critic, The Village Voice SPECIAL THANKS Susan Cahan / associate dean for the arts Daisy Abreu / arts admin coordinator Tony Sudol / projectionist Masha Schpolberg / Films at the Whitney coordinator Isaac Morrier / graphic designer The Yale Digital Media Center for the Arts The Whitney Humanities Center The Yale Film Studies Center The Yale Film and Media Studies Program The Yale College Deans Office
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The Yale Student Film Festival is presented by the Yale Film Alliance. The following films represent work of students domestically, abroad, and at Yale. All films are screened on Blu-Ray. EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
00:00.02
NARRATIVE SHORTS
00:00.06
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
00:00.10
YALE FILMMAKERS BLOCK
00:00.12
WORKS IN PROGRESS LAB
00:00.16
YALE THESIS FILMS 00:00.17
YSFF17 / 00:00.1
STUDENT EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS SAT 04.22.17 / 15:30:00 Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
ZUGZWANG 07:00
INTERMITTENT CONTINUITY 02:48
A LOVE STORY 07:09
AMARILLO 03:45
TAKE NOTES IF YOU WANT TO 02:48
Perla Joe Maalouli / director
Konrad Peszko / director
Anushka Naanayakkara / director
Ana Perez Lopez / director
Owley Samter / director
The Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland
National Film & Television School, UK
The California Institute of the Arts, USA
Hochschule Luzern, Switzerland
A satirical journey that takes us through the mind cells of Maria Sikias, a Lebanese woman who’s going through a casting session with a German casting director. With each emotion requested, her subconscious is revealed, haunted by her reality and by the system that we live in as human beings.
Intermittent Continuity is a movie about relations between people and urban spaces they live in.
A powerful tale about love faced with darkness.
The artificial flavor of banana is based on a fruit that no longer exists. Gross Michelle was, until 1960, America’s most popular strand of bananas. Its obituary is bleak, gooey, and speaks about the past, present and future global food politics.
Perla Joe Maalouli grew up in Lebanon. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Interior Design, but then decided to study Cinematography.
00:00.2 / STUDENT EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
In her Directing Animation studies, Anushka was pushed to nurture her very visual and emotive style. She has an eye for detail and is very playful but critical with her approach to animation.
Observations through a sketchbook. Owley Samter was born in 1993. So that his mother would be proud of him, he decided to become an animator and illustrator.
Ana Pérez López is a Spanish filmmaker and journalist who is currently in the Experimental Animation MFA Program of CalArts. Her work questions the role of truth in the days of the Internet.
YSFF17 / 00:00.3
AN ILL-FITTING COAT 12:59
LOW SOUND OF FIRE 04:21
DOORS OF PERCEPTION 14:30
THE ORGAN HARVEST 00:16
LEFT TO THE AIR 11:00
FISH TANK LIFE 01:37
Lingyun Zheng / director
Daniel Wesseik / director
Caroline Schwarz / director
Lily Lizotte / director
Maisam Shah / director
Hunter College CUNY, USA
Academy of Art and Design St. Joost, The Netherlands
Filmarche Berlin, Germany
California Institute of the Arts, USA
Film and Television Institute of India
FRANK Shih Hsin University Taipei, Taiwan
This project originated while thinking about organ donors and the term organ harvesting. The film is a fantasy about a skeleton who feeds on human organs. Instead of eating living people he farms his own meals in his organ garden.
This film is about the disconnect between the elder son and his family. It looks at the other family members and explores their desires from an absentee protagonist’s point of view, like time travel in one’s mind. It explores the notion of ever changing nature of relationships and the process of making way for new ones formed at different times and places.
A family memory affects three generations of women, who have had to deal with separations in their lives. This film mixes non-fiction and fiction storytelling, through visualizing ancient Chinese poetry and cultural symbols and a voiceover transcending time and space. Lingyun Zheng is a filmmaker born and raised in China. With years of hands-on experience, she is determined to explore the new meaning of Chinese culture in a global cultural environment.
A call to save a nest from burning leads a certain bird to strange and unfamiliar territory. Daniel Wesseik is an illustrator and an animation director now based in Breda, The Netherlands. He recently graduated with a Masters in Animation Studies.
00:00.4 / STUDENT EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
Doors of Perception is a fairy tale in black light. In a world where the unknown is black infinity an person wakes up and has to look for her ways in darkness. She sets off to search for the familiar, the trustworthy. But does the truth lie in the visible? Since high school Caroline has been learning from images: from ads to experiments, from her own short films to educational projects. She studies at filmArche, the biggest selfgoverned film school in Europe.
Lily Lizotte is a member of the class of 2020 at CalArts
We live in the city, fish live in the fish tank, it’s the same. Frank is not a person but rather an idea of working together to create art and film.
Maisam is in his final year studying film direction. This is his first short film.
YSFF17 / 00:00.5
ADAM 2:27 Evelyn Ross / director Rhode Island School of Design, USA
STUDENT NARRATIVE SHORTS FRI 04.21.17 / 1 9:00:00 Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
In the beginning of them She created us. Evelyn Ross grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is interested in creating work out of tactile media such as sand, ink droplets, and clay. She has a background in dance and subconsciously uses that knowledge to choreograph movement in her work.
00:00.6 / STUDENT EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS / STUDENT NARRATIVE SHORTS
STRAY ANIMALS 13:21
PROJECTION ON SOFA 06:36
PIRATE SMOOCH 01:30
JOGI AND A BOX 17:56
Maju de Paiva / director
Violette Delvoye / director
Tobias Trebeljahr / director
Aron Horvath / director
Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
ENSAV La Cambre, Belgium
Filmakademie Baden WĂźrttemberg, Germany
Academy of Theater, Radio, Film and Television Ljubljana, Slovenia
Two pirate ships, one Chinese, one European, drive alongside each other in the wide ocean. A ferocious battle rages between the two crews. Only up on top of the tallest masts is an island that is surprisingly calm.
A stoner comedy about a day in the life of Jogi and his friend Davor. They try to return a lost shipment but encounter a grumpy postal worker. Good music, sunshine, and every day struggle ensue.
Olivia and Arthur spend their days away from home. The day Olivia discovers a stray cat in the woods is the first step into a journey of loss of innocence. Maju de Paiva was born in 1996, in Rio de Janeiro. In 2014, she started the Cinema and Video Program at Universidade Federal Fluminense. Stray Animals is her first film as a director and screenwriter.
Movie night at home. At the end of the film, the two women start a conversation about the idea of traveling. While smoking and drinking wine, they exchange their ideas, desires, and expectation. Violette Delvoye is an animation student in Brussels.
Tobi Trebeljahr was born 1987 in Darmstadt. As an autodidact skilled in 2D and 3D graphics he has worked as a designer for movies and videogames. He is now an animation student.
Aron Horvath was born in Slovenia. He studied fine arts for three years in Ljubljana, then applied to AFRFT for film directing. He is now finishing his third year and preparing for his diploma work.
YSFF17 / 00:00.7
DEATH IN A DAY 14:05
UP AND DOWN 19:07
MERMAIDS 14:20
SANYOG 19:00
KITE 03:00
POOCH 16:45
Lin Wang / director
Katharina Bischof / director
Marie Léa Regales / director
Aly Rana / director
Hsin Lin / director
Osman Yaziki / director
Chapman University, USA
University of Television and Film, Munich, Germany
I.U.T. of Corsica, France
Whistling Woods International, India
Taipei National University of Art, Taiwan
Dokuz Eylul Fine Arts Faculty, Turkey
Late night at a chawl in central Mumbai, a prostitute finds the courage to leave her sterile and meaningless life. A hostage escapes her kidnappers, a shootout occurs between gangsters, and a paralysed war veteran tries to walk after years of a sedentary life. All of this happens next door to each other in a single uninterrupted shot.
A story about the end of a relationship. From entanglements to the end of the story, the girl finally lets go of the past and lives in the moment.
Pooch tells the story of a Ahmet, a Turkish factory worker, and a refugee child being smuggled from Syria.
Evan would enjoy nothing more than to spend his day inside playing with his toys. He’s 7 years old, Chinese, living with his soon-tobe widowed mother. After visiting his father in the hospital, Evan learns he must come to grips with impending death while watching as his mother tries to cope. Lin Wang is a writer and director from Shanghai. She recently graduated from Chapman University in California, and has begun her career traveling and directing.
00:00.8 / STUDENT NARRATIVE SHORTS
Other people eat cake for their birthdays. The four Friedemann women go on a hike.
In Corsica, a tiny island in the Mediterranean, four friends enjoy the last days of an endless summer. As they tell each other their secrets, Camille, the youngest, tell her friends she is pregnant. She must make a decision, and grow up, at last. Marie Léa Regales was born in Paris in 1993. After a few years studying editing, she directed her first short film, Les Sirènes (Mermaids.)
Aly Rana is a a cinephile/writer/ director/editor and a Student at Whistling Woods International in Mumbai.
Hsin Lin was born in 1993. She is from Tainan, Taiwan, a slow-paced city with ancient buildings.
Osman Yaziki was born in Trabzon, Turkey. He has worked as an assistant director in the advertising industry. So far he has directed five short films. He is a student of the fine arts faculty of design and film.
YSFF17 / 00:00.9
UNCLE 10:40 Fabien Luszezyszyn / director Ecole de la Cite, France
STUDENT D OCUMENTARY SHORTS SAT 04.22.17 / 1 3:00:00 Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
After witnessing a murder, Elia finds herself kidnapped in the back of a pickup truck, fleeing on the country roads, by Tarek, an impulsive man; Yann, a giant body to a child’s mind, and Marie, a young woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown and about to give birth. Fabien is the cofounder of the arts association Mute and Play. He attended acting school and is now in his last year at Ecole de la Cite. His film, Until Death Do You Part, was featured in YSFF16.
00:00.10 / STUDENT NARRATIVE SHORTS / STUDENT DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
CELESTIAL CANDY 07:30
YUPPIE 26:31
Juliana Fochtman / director
Clark Burnett / director
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Yale University, USA
Human beings try to tame genetics, polish the animal, perfect the beast. A species is far from its nature. An ideal is imposed on the forms. It is a celestial candy. Juliana Fochtman studies image and sound design in the Architecture, Design, and Urbanism Faculty at UBA.
Yuppie is a historical and contemporary exploration of race relations and gentrification in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Clark Burnett attends Yale University. He’s interested in sociology (race and class issues), music, and telling stories. Clark has interned at Ken Burns’s production company and has edited viral videos for Genius.com. From thrillers to documentaries, his work has been screened in film festivals around the country.
FROM FLINT: VOICES OF A POISONED CITY 23:31 Elise Conklin / director Michigan State University From Flint: Voices from a Poisoned City tells the story of the Flint water crisis from the perspectives of those who have experienced this tragedy first hand and from activists working through grassroot organizations. Elise Conklin is a break-out documentary director from MSU. She has an extensive background in editing. After being mentored by Bob Albers, Elise has taken it into her own hands to start creating new and powerful works.
REMEMBER? 03:47 Sanna Liljander / director Aalto University, Finland Photographs capture special moments of our lives, at the same time reminding us of their impermanence. Remember? is a journey through a space of memories. Sanna Liljander (b.1980, Finland), studied cinematography and editing at Metropolia UAS, Degree Programme in Film and Television for two years. In 2014 she started documentary filmmaking studies at Aalto University, ELO Film School Helsinki.
YSFF17 / 00:00.11
THE LOST BOYS 12:49
BABA USTA: WHERE WE ALL END UP 22:23
Omar Eldib / director
Abdurrahman Bastug & Ozgun Kabakcioglu / directors Bahcesehir University, Turkey
Multimedia Universtiy, Malaysia An exploration of the lives of the aboriginal people of a small fishing community in the remote village of Kampung Kuala Masa, Jahor. Omar Eldib is originally from Egypt and now studies in Nusajaya, Jahor.
Baba Usta is a graveyard worker. When his office is threatened, he has to face both the municipality and a mysterious rival with powerful connections. Abdurrahman has directed several short films and has helped with independent film projects. He has been in a band since 2011. Ozgun was born in Ankara and raised in Istanbul. He has worked on numerous short films. He is currently focusing on new projects in visual storytelling.
00:00.12 / STUDENT DOCUMENTARY SHORTS / YALE FILMMAKERS BLOCK
YALE FILMMAKERS BLOCK THU 04.20.17 / 20:00:00 Loria 351
THE PROFIT 11:45 narrative
ROLE MODEL 10:30 narrative
HAND TO MOUTH 03:00 experimental
Benjamin Steinberg ‘17 / director
TJ Noel-Sullivan ‘20 / director
Bianca Boragi MFA ‘17 / director
Alexa, a college student, receives a vision from God commanding her to proselytize the new word to the people of the world. Finding the old methods of evangelism (street preaching, door-to-door evangelism) less than efficient, she hires a team of marketing executives to promote her new church. Of course, nothing goes according to plan.
19-year-old Jason does everything he can to be a good role model for his brother Jordan. Years of hard work in the face of adversity have paid off, giving Jason an opportunity to go to college and help his brother do the same. However, everything suddenly changes, as Jason is forced to choose between letting down his family and breaking the law.
Like a dream sequence, some of the actions usually performed in a pool are slightly deviated from reality. This film uses choreography and performance to depict an imaginary pool sermon where themes of ideology and struggle emerge.
Bio: see page 00:00.17.
TJ Noel-Sullivan is a freshman film studies major, originally from Hartford, CT. He hopes that this will be the first of many films he makes with his amazing cast and crew, and he plans to pursue a career in directing.
Bianca Boragi is a sculptor, filmmaker and actress. She recently graduated with an MFA in Sculpture from Yale School of Art and works as an archivist and craftsman for the Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings Archive at Yale University Art Gallery. She was born and raised in Paris, where she obtained her BFA from ENSAPC. YSFF17 / 00:00.13
GODUM 04:28 experimental
SONNET 23 03:52 narrative
Elaine Wang ‘20 / director
Rebecca Shoptaw ‘18 / director
A reinvention of the tale of the Hutongs, the alleyways in old Beijing city. In The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the oldest Chinese text of mythic geography, an old nymph lives in the Hutongs to collect memories of the past.
“Sonnet 23” is a modern reimagining of Shakespeare’s sonnet: the story of a boy frozen in his indecision about whether or not to confess his feelings to his male best friend, told through an impressionistic style that mirrors both the sentiment and the structure of the original sonnet.
Elaine Wang is a freshman and the assistant director of YSFF17.
00:00.14 / YALE FILMMAKERS BLOCK
This film seeks to explore how to translate an Elizabethan sonnet into the language of film, incorporating everything from the story arc to the imagery to the rhythm to the fact that Shakespeare originally wrote it for a man.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE, OR MISADVENTURES IN THE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM 30:40 narrative Rebecca Shoptaw is a junior at Yale. She has created a number of award-winning short films featuring LGBTQ+ characters, along with the currently airing web series Middlemarch: The Series.
CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE IS DEAD 44:56 narrative Russell Cohen ‘17 / director
Jackie Ferro ‘17 / director When freshman TJ Sanders shows up late to the first day of his first section, he mishears a student who asks, “Are you the TA?” This simple misunderstanding spirals into a web of lies, and TJ sets off on a series of misadventures while masquerading as a graduate student, including awkward interactions with the class’s real TAs, a crush on the smartest girl in section, and many, many papers to grade. Jackie Ferro is a senior in Branford College, majoring in Film and Media Studies major with a concentration in Screenwriting and
Production. She is most involved in student film and theater on campus, often writing and directing short films with Bulldog Productions and doing everything from stage management to lights crew with the Yale Dramatic Association. She also sings a capella, performs stand-up comedy and is a Branford FroCo.
When the world’s greatest hero is defeated, his five ex-sidekicks gather together to mourn, air longstanding grievances, and, perhaps, figure out a successor. Russell Cohen is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College from Cleveland, Ohio who is studying History and Film & Media Studies. He has served as vice-president, president, and head of production for Bulldog Productions and is currently a producer of the Class Day Video. He plays trombone in the Yale Precision Marching Band, coaches debate through Urban Debate League, and is involved in various JE committees. YSFF17 / 00:00.15
WORKS IN PROGRESS LAB
ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
BLACK EYE
YALE THESIS FILMS
BEAR WITH ME
POINT BLANK THERAPY
FRI 04.21.17 / 15:30:00
Jackie Ferro / director
Frazer Tessema / director
SAT 04.22.17 / 1 7:00:00
DMCA 104
Based on the classic game Rock, Paper, Scissors, this film explores an important and timely question: does paper really beat rock? It is also a fencing drama. Rock, Paper, Scissors taps into the inevitable future of cinema: movies based on games. There is perhaps no game more pervasive nor no film more inevitable than Rock, Paper, Scissors.
A black father and son confront possible racism at a diner. After leaving in frustration, they confront a homeless man obsessed with Obama who forces the audience to reconsider what really happened in the diner.
Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
written and directed by Benjamin Steinberg
written and directed by Ceri Godinez
Over the course of an afternoon, a precocious teenage girl must help her disowned older brother get forgiveness from their parents.
Two friends are kidnapped in the middle of a relationship-ending argument. As their young, semicompetent kidnapper drives them to his rendezvous point with his mother, the women are forced to work through their differences in order to take control of the situation.
Bio: see page 00:00.15.
00:00.16 / WORKS IN PROGRESS LAB / YALE THESIS FILMS
Frazer Tessema is a senior in Silliman College.
Benjy Steinberg is from Palo Alto, California. He’s studied writing and directing at the UCLA School of Film, Theater, and Television, and at the FAMU Academy in Prague. Benjy’s films have screened at festivals in Los Angeles, New York City, New Haven, and Fort Lauderdale. He won Best Student Director at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival for his short film “The Profit”.He also won Best Documentary Film at the Yale Student Film Festival for his short “Restore the Villages”, and Best Cinematography for his work on the short “Harold.”
Ceri Godinez is a Film and Media Studies major graduating from Yale in the spring. She spends her free time rock climbing and watching The Office.
YSFF17 / 00:00.17
SOMETIMES AT NIGHT
PERIPHERAL
written and directed by Jeff Ding
written and directed by Gian-Paul Bergeron
Years after their relationship ended, Jake and Laura unexpectedly run into each other in Cleveland. Both new to the city, they spend an evening wandering through it and reconnecting.
“Peripheral” is a film about what it means to be a protagonist and how our self-conceptions shape the way we treat others. It is also a film about indie rom-coms, “nice guys,” misogyny, and earnestness.
Originally from Cleveland, Jeff Ding is a graduating film studies and computer science student at Yale University. Sometimes at Night is the first film he has directed and written.
Gian-Paul Bergeron is a senior American Studies major concentrating in Visual, Literary, and Performance Cultures. He is a proud member of The Good Show, Yale’s late-night style comedy show and video sketch group, and The Control Group, Yale’s experimental theatre ensemble. He also acts in and directs theater productions, a highlight being Clay/Dale in The Quonsets at the Yale Cabaret. He has no idea where
00:00.18 / YALE THESIS FILMS
he is going to be next year but if you want to make fun art with him, shout into the ether and he will find you!
YSFF17 / 00:00.19
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS MON 04.17.17
SAT 04.22.17
ETHICS IN D OCUMENTARY FILM with Rachel Dretzin YC ’87 15:30:00 / DMCA 104
STUDENT D OCUMENTARY SHORTS 13:00:00 / Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
WOMEN IN FILM Panel Discussion 19:00:00 / LC 102
STUDENT EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS 15:30:00 / Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
TUE 04.18.17 SEARCHING FOR AUTHENTICITY Crafting approaches to short and feature filmmaking with Monique Walton YC ’04 16:00:00 / DMCA 104 Opening Screening: L ITTLE MEN followed by Q&A with Director Ira Sachs YC ’87 18:00:00 / Loria 250 WED 04.19.17 Alumni Screening: DIS(HONESTY) The Truth About Lies 20:00:00 / Loria 250
THU 04.20.17 COMEDY IN FILM with Jonathan Smith YC ’04 16:00:00 / DMCA 104 YALE FILMMAKERS BLOCK 20:00:00 / Loria 351 FRI 04.21.17 WORKS IN PROGRESS LAB 15:30:00 / DMCA 104 STUDENT NARRATIVE SHORTS 19:00:00 / Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
YALE THESIS FILMS 17:00:00 / Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium