First, a warning—Wednesday night is the 35th annual Redstone Film Festival, and the Tsai Performance Center can hold only about 515 people. Last year, as most years, there wasn’t an empty seat.
Films from seven young filmmakers are vying for best picture at the annual competition, which showcases the most promising work by students and recent grads of the College of Communication’s filmmaking and screenwriting programs. The festival is sponsored by media mogul and Viacom chair Sumner Redstone (Hon.’94).
Paul Schneider, chair of the film and television department, says the free festival is the place to gauge what fresh young filmmakers are creating. “You’re not sitting through seven features,” says Schneider. “Each film is about 10 to 12 minutes long, so in a little over an hour you’re bound to see something that will interest or excite you.”
Several former Redstone Film Festival winners are now successful Hollywood players. They include Gary Fleder (COM’85), director of Runaway Jury, Richard Gladstein (CGS’81, COM’83), producer of Pulp Fiction, The Bourne Identity, and Finding Neverland, and Steve Brill (COM’84), screenwriter of Heavy Weights.
This year’s finalists are Emily Sheehan (COM’15), director of After, a story about the choices made during an affair; Jack Garrett (COM’14), who made Albert Lively, about the funeral of an old man who once faked his own death; Julia Iglesias (COM’14), creator of Ida’s 85th, about an octogenarian’s raucous birthday party; Jim Dandee (COM’14), director of The Phoenix, about a young woman who finds herself in a compromised position after a long night out and must try to learn what really happened; Sara Doering (COM’15) (who goes by her screen name Xavery Robin), director of Tianjin Driver, a documentary about a female cab driver in Tianjin, China; Fannar Thor Arnarsson (COM’14), who made the short Vows, about an abused mother-to-be who does what she must for the safety of her child; and Bryan Sih (COM’14), director of Winter/Spring, a drama about two adults living on a farm who are wrestling with whether or not they are ready to be parents.
Doering, whose Tianjin Driver is the sole documentary in the festival, shot her film over a period of four days with interpreting help from a friend fluent in Mandarin, which was the only way she could communicate with the cab driver. Unlike in America, where the great majority of cab drivers are men, close to 30 percent of drivers around the Tianjin area are female. Doering regards her film is a dual profile—of a person and a city.
The finalists were all originally produced for a COM film, television, or video production class or as a graduate thesis project. The finalists and the winners are selected in a two-step process. A committee of production, screenwriting, and film-studies graduates first whittles down the submissions to a list of finalists, and another panel, comprising film industry professionals, names the winners.
First, second, and third place winners, as well as the best cinematographer, will receive Canon DSLR camera equipment. The best editing winner will get Avid editing software, and ProTools software will go to the winner of the sound design award. Other awards will be given to student screenplays and production.
The annual Fleder-Rosenberg short screenplay contest winners will also be announced at the festival. The contest has been sponsored by screenwriters Fleder and Scott Rosenberg (COM’85) for several years. A check for $1,250 goes to the first prize winner, $750 to the second prize winner, and $500 to the third prize winner.
The recipient of this year’s Adrienne Shelly Production Grant will be announced at Wednesday’s festival as well. The $5,000 grant is awarded to a female filmmaker by the Adrienne Shelly Foundation in honor of producer, writer, and actress Shelly (COM’87), best known for her film The Waitress, who was murdered in her New York City apartment in 2006.
Last year’s Adrienne Shelly Production award went to Iglesias, whose film Ida’s 85th is one of this year’s finalists. She credits the $5,000 grant with helping her team move quickly through the film’s preproduction process.
“I knew I really wanted to write something with elderly people, because in my experience, as people age they have less of a filter, so I thought that would make for good comedy,” Iglesias says. “Then it was a matter of figuring out the most ridiculous situation to put them in.”
This year’s winners will be chosen by documentary filmmaker and editor Jeanne Jordan, filmmaker and executive director of the LEF Foundation Lyda Kuth, Emmy-winning cinematographer Paul Goldsmith, and Boston-based actor, director, and producer Lewis Wheeler.
The 35th annual Redstone Film Festival is Wednesday, February 25, at 7 p.m., at the Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Ave. The event is free and open to the public. BU Today will feature a story about this year’s winners on Thursday, February 26.
The Boston Redstone Film Festival is followed by Redstone festivals in New York (designed primarily as a showcase for alumni) on March 13 and in Los Angeles (open to both students and alumni) on April 2. The Redstone Alumni Short Film Competition, with a prize of $500, is part of the Los Angeles festival.