Filmmakers showcase works at festival

Budding student filmmakers got a chance to screen their works Friday night in front of a roomful of their peers as part of the first-ever West Philadelphia Film Festival. The student-run festival allowed more than a dozen students from Penn and other local colleges, as well as West Philadelphia residents, to showcase short films that they had written and directed. A documentary about the Vietnam War, The Weight, was also shown. Filmmaker Sid Holmes spoke briefly to the audience following the film festival. The films ranged in content and filming techniques from one that poked fun of VH1's hit program, Behind the Music -- the documentary chronicled the lives of two famous karaoke singers, "Kier and Courtney" -- to one, titled Our Vacation, that featured a man being chased through the woods and killed. Most of the filmmakers were students. Of those, some are currently enrolled in film classes, while others are just finding a new hobby. College juniors Zach Miller and Justin Carey, for instance, decided on a whim to make a film after hearing about the festival. Their short film, titled Liquid Assets, was filmed with a computer camera and then played on a computer screen. Though to many in the audience displaying a small gray screen with computer commands on top might have seemed like an artistic decision, the two filmmakers insisted that their decision was really based on a lack of equipment. "I wish they had more stuff like this on campus. We need more of a medium to show our stuff," Miller said, adding that he was impressed with the camera effects of several of his fellow filmmakers. College senior Saryn Chorney, the filmmaker of Lola and a Film Studies minor, said she felt the festival was beneficial to those interested in film. "It's cool to see what other people are doing. I'm trying to come up with ideas," the College senior said. "When you see the creative process at work, it makes you think of ideas," she said. Chorney felt that the other films viewed were each very unique. "Each of the films had a different angle." Penn last year began offering a Film Studies minor, but still does not offer a major -- a fact that seemed to dismay many interested students. The audience and filmmakers' response to the event was overwhelmingly positive, as many said they hoped that there would be a continuation of film festivals. One of the film festival's organizers, College junior Barry Schwartz, said he felt that having a film festival was important to promote and encourage students interested in film and to allow filmmakers from different schools around the area to meet. "I think there's a large film contingency at Penn," Schwartz said. "This event brings together West Philly artists and students from surrounding schools? who share a common interest in film. We need to create a venue so we can work together in the future."