SHORTS COLUMN | Scouting at UCLA’s Industry Showcase of Student Films

Another 35mm MFA thesis film, Justin Lerner‘s 24-minute “The Replacement Child,” wore its Best Sound Design student award like a badge of honor.  Shot over 11 days in the filmmaker’s hometown of Wayland, MA, the religiously-themed film centers on a young man returning home to find his bed-ridden best friend withering away without any medical attention due to the family’s spiritual beliefs.  Benefiting from high production value, “The Replacement Child” played like a feature film on the immense DGA screen.

In contrast, Ted Chung‘s three-and-a-half minute black and white comedy, “Mike’s,” looked and felt like a scrappy student film - a much appreciated palate cleanser between the feature-like MFA offerings.  In this sad sack tale, our hero Mike sets up a hidden camera surveillance system to prove his roommate or his roommate’s girlfriend is stealing his food.  Clearly, the students in the audience could relate, as “Mike’s” earned hearty laughs.

The penultimate MFA thesis film, Thabo Wolfaardt‘s “Joburg,” was shot in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Running 22 minutes long, this gripping crime drama explores the limited options available to a desperate young man forced to carjack a pissed-off pregnant woman with her own problems.

The final film of the evening: another lengthy MFA thesis film, “Damn The Past!”  Luckily, the jazzy title sequence served fair warning to the weary audience that this 29-minute film by Juli Kang was not going to be another intensely serious drama, but would instead be serving up an all-singing, all-dancing, happy-ending romance.  With a dance-crazy heroine recently released from the nut house and a grease monkey hero who can only sing, “Damn The Past!” is a campy musical reminiscent of John Waters “Cry-Baby.”  It’s no surprise that Kang’s film won student awards for Most Original and Best Visual Design.

The evening began with a special Filmmakers of the Year presentation, in which “Little Miss Sunshine” co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Class of 1980) were honored.  Dayton and Faris reminded everyone in attendance that film school continues even after graduation, as each new project undertaken is a learning experience.

The evening concluded with a catered reception, in which production insiders gossiped about budgets (how “Joburg” benefited from a $20K grant) and the actors in attendance worked the room.  In other words, a typical industry gathering. 

Contact information for the filmmakers and trailers of most of the shorts can be found on the UCLA Festival 2007 website.

Kim Adelman is the author of “The Ultimate Filmmaker’s Guide to Short Films.”