Five College Film Festival

2008 Winners

Following are the winners of the Five College Film Festival, which screened on February 29, 2008.

In My Genes:
Best of Festival and Best Documentary
Lupita Nyong'o, Hampshire College
What is it like to be “white” in a “black” world? How does it feel to be a member of one of the most hypervisible and yet invisible groups of people?

Big Toy Problems:
Best Animation and Best of Amherst
Jeffrey Dalessandro, Amherst College
A spontaneous stop-motion misadventure.

One Day:
Best Dance on Camera
Margaret Piacenza, Smith College
One Day looks at one person's journey through an imaginative, sonic landscape where the act of listening bears witness to the difficulty in quieting one's heart.

Personae:
Best Narrative
Schuyler T. Kelly, Hampshire College

Pentimento: Repentance:
Best Experimental
Xander Points-Zollo, Hampshire College

Following Jake:
Best of Hampshire
Zardon Richardson
Following Jake is a coming of age story about a young African American inner-city male coming to terms with his sexuality in a hostile home.

Garbageman:
Best of Mount Holyoke
Ariel Hahn
A stop-motion adventure to the tunes of The Cramps: It is just about garbage.

Scratch of Death:
Best of UMass
Alex Ezorsky-Lie
Two worlds battle between the screen.

Neshomeleh: Best of Smith
Dawna Sirard
In a story about the endurance of love, an old man prepares for a picnic.

2007 Winners

Following are the winners of the Five College Film Festival, which screened on Friday, May 11, 2007.

Countdown (3 mins.):
Best animation
Josiah Aiken-Drake is a 4th-Year student at Hampshire College, where he has been focusing on the study and production of fictional narrative. Countdown is Josiah's first foray into the realms of film, animation, and a non-narrative structure.

On and On and Over, Through, and Between (12 mins.):
Best of Amherst College
A young woman with an unusual obsession maps out her daily routine and enters into a long-winded philosophical meditation on life, death, addiction and repetition. Emilie Friedlander graduated from Amherst College in the spring of 2007. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she came to Amherst College to study Art History and ended up studying video production and Continental philosophy. She served as student director for the 2007 Five College Film Festival and is pleased to have her work featured in the show.

Object Lesson (4 mins. 50 secs.):
Best Experimental Film and Best of Smith College
Julie Casper Roth

Decolonizing the Mind (7 mins.):
Best of Hampshire College
A symbolic exploration of a dichotomized African self: one self at once historical and present and the other a product of today but only as a result of yesterday. Lupita Nyong'o graduated from Hampshire College in the spring of 2007. A lover of performance, Lupita values cross-cultural exchange and is committed to diversity and education through visual media. She has recently completed In My Genes, a feature-length documentary about the experience of people with albinism in Kenya.

Denkmal (55 mins.):
Best Narrative
Set in Berlin, Germany during the 2006 World Cup, Denkmal is a movie about young love and national identity. Alison Boland is a 2007 Hampshire College graduate. This is her first long format film and she hopes to continue making movies in the following years.

Traversing Texture (4 mins. 33 secs.):
Best of Mount Holyoke College
An experiment into film's ability to capture nature alongside written and spoken texts influenced by nature, with an emphasis on the interaction between these mediums. Marie Muir is a native Vermonter and 2007 graduate of Mount Holyoke College. She is an Anthropology Major and Film Studies Minor with interests focusing on topics of nature, perceptions of self, and fancies campy horror flicks.

YouTube: A Mediated Community (20 mins.):
Best Documentary
A documentary film exploring the online community, YouTube. Specifically, we were interested in investigating "vloggers" and how YouTube affects people's everyday lives. Ashley Hunt graduated from Mount Holyoke College in May 2007 with a BA in Film Studies and Politics. She is a DJ and enjoys hip hop, ultimate frisbee and graphic novels. Next year she will be attending the University of Kent in Canterbury, England for a Masters in Film Studies. Loren Robertson graduated from Mount Holyoke College in December of 2006 with a BA in Dance and Film Studies. She lives in San Francisco, CA working as an arts administrator at a grass-roots performance space and is continuing her work as a videoartist and performer.

Dog vs. God (9 mins. 39 secs.):
Best of UMass Amherst
Benjamin Sydney.

Nightingale Princess (46 mins.):
First Prize, Best of Festival
Nick sleepwalks through life. Withdrawn from his computer-addicted mother and alcoholic best friend, he loses himself in a fantasy world of his own creation. Stumbling upon a long-abandoned swimming pool, Nick encounters the Nightingale, a young woman he thought existed only in his imagination. Owen Granich-Young is a sound designer and foley artist. Owen brings his own distinct acoustic style to audio post-production. His experience as a dancer grants him an imaginative perspective on rhythm and motion. Christopher Dreisbach is a storyboard artist, lighting designer, animator, and director. Chris transforms his creative writing and elaborate storyboards into strikingly expressive on-screen compositions. Daniel Gilbert is a photographer, cinematographer, animator, and editor. His eye for perfection and fine-tuned attention to detail provide a fine polish to each of our productions.