PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Another three-day festival took over an Ivy League campus last weekend, and it wasn't Spring Fling.
The Ivy Film Festival attracted professionals, fans and student filmmakers alike to Brown University, where 25 films were selected and screened out of over 200 submissions.
Started in 2001 by Brown undergraduates David Peck and Justin Slosky, the Ivy Film Festival is an annual gathering in Providence for those who love film. Submissions are not limited to students in the Ivy League, as this year's winners included students from schools as far away as Poland and Cuba.
College senior D.J. Lubel's "Untitled in Long Island" was this year's "Best Undergraduate Comedy."
The movie is a "dark, satirical comedy [that] pokes fun and celebrates Long Island," Lubel said.
Lubel produced a sketch comedy called "Big Men on Campus" on UTV during his junior year. The film piqued his interest in making "Long Island" last summer.
"It feels good other people enjoy the same sense of humor," Lubel said of the award.
"It's a venue for student filmmakers, especially for undergraduates who don't have funding and are majoring in other things," festival Programming Director and Brown junior Bryan Chang said.
"Most of the time you show it to your friends and that's the end of it," he said about college productions in general.
Among Chang's favorites was the Penn submission "As Real As Your Life," a video-game documentary by Engineering sophomore Michael Highland.
Chang also enjoyed "Accounting for Everything," a 22-minute comedy about a Gorilla Club created by the Blitzfilme Group. Blitzfilme is a collaboration of three high school friends -- College senior Joshua Gorin, Harvard student Michael Mitnick and Penn State student Tyler Mossman. Their second group submission -- "Winning Caroline" -- won Best Undergraduate Comedy last year.
Gorin did not attend the Ivy Film Festival, opting to enjoy his final Spring Fling on campus instead. However, he and his friends spent all of winter break producing the film.
"We write, direct and shoot the film in a matter of weeks," Gorin said of the process. He added that his experience will prove valuable in his "creative job" of research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering after he graduates.
Other student filmmakers from the festival also plan to continue working in film. Sarah Lawrence College senior Jay Sterrenberg is planning to become a freelance filmmaker in New York. His silent comedy "No Parents" generated many laughs from the audience.
"It's a joke amongst all of us -- very exaggerated," Sterrenberg said of the sketch, which includes scenes of drugs and sex.
Caroline Means, a 2004 George Washington University graduate who attended the festival for the first time, was impressed with all of the films.
"I think it's cool people my age are doing something so professional," she said.
The Ivy Film Festival sponsored panels of film business experts who judged the event and also showed exclusive screenings of the film company THINKFilm's "Murderball" and "The Aristocrats."
"Murderball" co-director Henry-Alex Rubin, who also played a directing role in such films as "Cop Land" and "Girl Interrupted," said he had a blast at the event.
"From the moment [the festival staff] picked us up in a bow tie, we knew these kids mean business," Rubin said. However, he added that he thought other students should have a chance to experience the festival at their own school.
"I think a different Ivy should host it next year," he said.
