The 2002 Notre Dame Student Film Festival, now in its 13th year of existence, kicks off tonight in the Hesburgh Library Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Despite its new location, this year's festival promises the same unique and often eclectic mix of student short films.

Professor Ted Mandell of the Department of Film, Television and Theatre began the festival just two years after graduating from Notre Dame. In 1988, Mandell realized that showcasing student films to just parents wasn't enough.

"Films are made to be seen," Mandell said, "not just shown in class."

At first, the films were screened for 75 people in the basement of the Center for Continuing Education. However, the festival quickly increased in popularity and eventually moved to the Snite Museum of Art, where it has been held up until this year. Considering the consecutive sellout crowds in the past, approximately 2,000 tickets are being made available for this year's event.

The festival features the aspiring work of students in the four production classes offered by the University: introductory, intermediate and advanced film production, as well as pro video production. This year's show consists of 13 films, eight coming from the advanced class, two from intermediate and introductory, and one from pro video.

Mandell chose the festival's lineup to create a "roller-coaster" effect on the audience.

"The films are kind of like watching a lot of different Saturday Night Live skits together," he said. "They're all different, and you have to process each one as a separate entity."

Students take a lot of pride in their films. After all, Mandell notes, "not too many other graded projects are showcased to the entire University." Rob Bonella knows firsthand just how much work goes into creating a short. Along with Matt Peters, Rob directed "Train Station - Day" which will appear in the festival. He describes professor Jill Godmilow's advanced film production course as the most intense class he has taken at Notre Dame.

"It's a different kind of learning," he said. "The class is very hands-on and not as traditionally academic."

Indeed, the hands-on nature of the production classes forces the students to work closely together and crew for each other's films.

"You have to be a part of three other films as well as your own," Bonella said. "You being on top of everything is essential. You really have to know what you are doing."

In the end, the students have to learn the craft of lifetime skilled professionals in just three months. Many express that more of their time is spent in the production classes than in all their other classes combined.

Chosen by Mandell based on technical merit, the films in the festival are entirely written and shot by the students.

"It's the students' films," he said. "We just help them along."

Past Notre Dame film grads have used this guidance to progress through the film and television industry. A small sampling of the group's accomplishments is impressive to say the least.

Maggie Ruffings ('98) is now a producer at NFL Films and received an Emmy nomination in 2000 for Outstanding Editing. Jennifer Crescenzo ('97) is currently the senior producer at Video/Action, a Washington D.C. based, not-for-profit production company focused on creating media that provides a voice for people and communities whose stories are rarely heard. In 2001, she received a local Emmy for a story about the people of Lockerbie, Scotland and their kindness after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Andy Kris ('94) supervised the sound and mixing of "The Laramie Project," which opened at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The film is based on the murder of Mathew Shepard, and premiered on HBO last March.

Only time will tell what distinguished careers this year's class of filmmakers will lead. But for now, here's a sneak preview of what they have produced for 2002.

"This Time You'll Watch Me On You"

uDirected by: Maggie Moran

Moran's short is a film rant against rape. While it is at once terse and disjointed in its quasi-narrative structure, Moran is still able to parlay this aspect into enhancing the overall message of the film. The director explained her techniques: "I used cuts, light leaks and jump cut editing to emphasize the film as a construction. The woman (Martha) has been raped and the film is her opportunity to address a stand-in or `abstract' perpetrator in abstract spaces — to get it all out of herself, to release the pain and confusion she's held inside since the incident." Backstopping the production are the talents of veteran Notre Dame actor Matt Lee, who starred in last year's FTT production of Oedipus Rex, and sophomore newcomer Julie Dickinson. Said Moran about her cast: "I owe much of my film's strength to [Julie's] creativity. I feel she had a strong connection with the piece from the very start. [Matt] is a very accomplished actor with whom I feel fortunate to have worked." With the gripping "This Time," Moran has become accomplished in her own right.

"Still Life"

uDirected by: Dustin Park and Brian Scofield

In "Still Life," a photographer searches a rural landscape for a subject and is struck by the various dead animals she finds. The narrative catalogs her fieldwork, melancholy photographs and eventually her sympathy with her subject matter. Like the photographs, which are central to the plot, the compositional beauty of "Still Life" belies the difficulty that was overcome en route to the final product.

"Since we didn't shoot the film on the same days as finding the animals, and since we couldn't depend on finding an animal the day of shooting, we had to store them in Dustin's refrigerator. Needless to say, we threw away that contraption at the end of the semester. I don't think the power of God could have taken away the rank smell," Scofield said about the unusual production hazards.

Fortunately for Scofield and Park, rank is completely absent from their unique film.

"DGM Investments"

uDirected by: Andy Gregar and Dan Nowak

In this clever dark comedy by directors Andy Gregar and Dan Nowak, a multi-talented man named Gordy acts as a salesman, hit man and doctor. He performs assisted suicides then steals the person's organs and gives them to needy customers. In yet another twist, the family members of the deceased cash in on the insurance policy. "DGM" is an entertaining reprise to Gregar's "Time and Temperature," a 2000 mocku-mentary of the seedy underbelly of small-town America.

"L'faire"

uDirected by: Peter Richardson and Beth Leliaert

Certainly the most explicit piece of the festival, "L'faire" delves into the pages of a sexy fashion magazine and asks the question, "Who are these female models really portraying?" As two women discuss their opinions, one still image comes to life. The result is a stylish and multi-dimensional narrative with a slick surprise ending. Professor Jill Godmilow said, "It's an extraordinary meditation on whether the ad is selling clothing by selling sex or not, and if not, what else could that image mean?"

With an open ending, Leliaert and Richardson leave the decision to the audience.

"Lament"

uDirected by: Matthew Reilly and Brent Buchman

"Lament" is a film poem presented in three repeating acts. Each act begins with a brief sexual sequence between a young man and woman, and then is enveloped by a montage of a single character meandering about town musing on the deeper aspects of their relationship with the other. The most striking property of the film is its mellow, stream-of-consciousness voiceover, which Reilly and Buchman originally planned to be read in a jarring "slam poetry" style.

"Due to the complexity of the poetry, we needed a slower, more controlled style to make sure viewers could hear and hopefully understand," Buchman said about the change.

Though their film style has a raw, retro feel that is reminiscent of 1970s Hollywood, Buchman said their cinematic inspirations lie elsewhere.

"The most influential film [for us] was `The Wizard' with Fred Savage. The cheerleading epic `Bring it On' also supplied us with great inspiration."

"Train Station - Day"

uDirected by: Rob Bonella and Matt Peters

With "Train Station - Day," Bonella and Peters have fashioned an unconventional comedy about a suburban kid trying to leave home. In the strain of "American Beauty" and "Blue Velvet," the film largely critiques the bourgeois, middle-class lifestyle and its anesthetizing effect on the nuclear family. The protagonist, Billy, leads the audience through typified suburbia and is met by stultifying friends and family at every turn.

"I wanted to write a film that dealt with that strange position of growing up or living in relative comfort and being dissatisfied with it," Bonella said. "You find yourself in a situation that does not work and, despite the apparent benefits, it's completely suffocating."

"Return"

uDirected by: Charlie Holden-Corbett and Ryan White

"Return" tells the story of a family whose father has been physically debilitated as the result of a car wreck. Due to the violently sustained trauma of the accident, the father suffers from akinetic mutism, a state in which a person is conscious of his surroundings, but is unable to communicate his cognizance to anyone else. Return covers a wide scope; perspectives range from the skepticism of the doctor to the silent condition of the father, and finally the prayerful hope of his wife and children. While the narrative seems dominated by the immobility and helplessness of this man who was once a breadwinner, Corbett is quick to point out that the faith of his family is an even stronger theme in the film.

"There is a very deeply religious aspect to this film. Akinetic mutism is a very tough condition for families to work through, and it seemed to us that faith would be the only way to keep hope. It is not a story of large and grand miracles, but of small, unexpected ones. The family's prayers are heard and answered as ours are, in ways and at times we don't expect," he said.

"Oh, For the Love"

uDirectedy by: Brian Skorney and Jeremy Sony

In contrast to "Return," "Oh, For the Love" unabashedly satirizes religion, particularly the Catholic sacrament of marriage. Perhaps intended as a post-modern myth, the film depicts the characters of Cupid, Venus and Jesus observing a wedding and commenting on the facile and misunderstood relationship that brought about its occurrence. "Love" asserts that the affection and attraction aroused by Cupid and Eros will never completely satisfy a relationship, and that the Catholic idea of Christian love through marriage is a construct that treacherously attempts to numb man and woman from this realization.

"I feel the cynicism of the film stemmed largely from my own personal outlooks on relationships and the oftentimes bizarre ways relationships seem to take form," Skorney said.

Besides highlighting the seemingly bogus concept of Christian love, the film also portrays the Jesus figure irreverently hanging about a dorm chapel, even pausing to sit on the altar. Skorney reflects on the problem of asking permission to use a chapel from a campus rector: "We convinced him that it wouldn't portray the Church in a bad light. In the end, I worried that he would be a little too cautious over what was occurring so we switched over to Alumni Hall. He was very happy to have us film there and never asked about the content."

Two silent and black and white films appear in this year's festival, as well: "Flirtations" and "Fatal Error." "Fatal Error" tells the story of two young mothers faced with the disappearance of their children. The brief narrative documents the tormented anguish of the women and projects the sort of tragedy a simple twist of fate can bring about, especially when dealing with the U.S. Postal Service.

In "Flirtations," a young man catches the eye of an attractive young woman in a small café. However, the chance liaison turns out to be a horse of a different gender, as the short plot unfolds in a scene reminiscent of "Swingers."

Also appearing in the festival are two shorts from Introductory Production. Both were filmed on digital video and poke fun at life on campus in two very different ways. "Jack," by Jeremy Renteria, examines a mentally unstable student and his skewed world. Featuring an absurd plot line, a jagged, frenzied mise-en-scene and a shockingly bizarre neurosis, "Jack" is both comical and disturbing.

"I enjoy making films that have the potential to make people laugh, but not in a conventional sense. The jokes are there, but at the same time you're laughing at something that is a little on the dark side. In this case, things like obsessive behavior, especially between men and women, are being a bit exaggerated, or pulled in a direction that they don't typically go, so that the audience is able to recognize the situation, but can see it in an atypical, and hopefully humorous way," Renteria said.

Alongside "Jack," "Checkout" stands apart as the only other video to make an appearance in this year's film festival. Juli Baron's tale of a slick player trying to spin some game on an unassuming young lady is witty and brief. Though the piece is simple dialogue and conventional shot-reverse-shot, "Checkout" is well composed and the relevance of the setting, conversation and conclusion will not be lost on Notre Dame students.

Perhaps the beauty of the Student Film Festival is the emotional vigor and originality that is present in each work. With the number of Hollywood movies and commercialized advertisements constantly infiltrating our lives, the freshness of these pieces pulls us away from the norm, even if just for a couple hours. Robert Browning said, "It is the glory and good of Art, that Art remains the one way possible of speaking truth." In order to produce these films, students have to find a way to speak their own truths.

"You have to be completely immersed in your film to make it right," Mandell said. "It's a part of you."

The 2002 Notre Dame Student Film Festival

- Hesburgh Library Auditorium

- Jan. 24, 25, 26 and 28 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.

- Admission: $4

Contact Liam Dacey and Mario Bird at wdacey@nd.edu and mbird@nd.edu.

• Amateur filmmaking in name only