Films at this year's Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival ranged from the frivolous and fun ballad of a hot air balloon spy to the weighty and grave story of a transsexual Drexel student switching genders.
About 540 people attended the third-annual festival last Friday, where students from Penn, Drexel and University of the Arts took away the majority of the awards.
Three Penn students won six awards, in categories ranging from experimental film to drama to comedy.
College sophomore Kevin McMullin, whose films last year took first and second place in the category for best drama, was a finalist this year for best comedy, best experimental film and best drama.
He took the gold in best comedy, for Thergood, a film about a young man who wildly misrepresents his recent breakup, black eye and broken nose to the audience and an admiring friend.
McMullin took second place for his experimental work, The Boy and the Star, and an honorable mention for his drama, Dirty Pretty Things.
"It's nice to see two of my films seen on the big screen," he said, adding in response to his comedy that it was "great to be in anonymity in the audience and hear people laugh."
Mark Rosenthal, writer of Planet of the Apes and Mona Lisa Smile, was the keynote speaker at the event.
Several attendees said they enjoyed the speech, even though it seemed targeted at film students.
Rosenthal advised students to be willing to work side jobs to finance their passions.
"Do you want to be someone who is self-made?" he asked, as he described an industry that often leaves artists filled with self-doubt.
But the festival's audience tried to stifle Rosenthal's 35-minute speech with premature clapping. One member asked if Rosenthal "was being paid to inspire."
The disruption disturbed attendee Serena Pomerantz, a UArts sophomore.
"I was really shocked by the booing," she said. She added that she hopes the festival "will make people realize the work that goes into [filmaking] and people will stop being disrespectful."
Hiccups aside, Pomerantz said the quality of the many entries also impressed her, especially McMullin's The Boy and the Star, which portrayed a boy's struggle after his mother's death.
'It was really interesting to see how he combined animation and real people," she said.
Brian Crawford, a Drexel junior who created The Hammer and the Butterfly, the documentary about a transsexual Drexel student, said festival organizers, "did a good job in bringing a lot of students together and showcasing a lot of great work."
College sophomore Yanik Ruiz-Ramon, co-executive director of the festival and a Daily Pennsylvanian photographer, said the new category for animation, added this year, was particularly successful.
Kelly Jones, a recent graduate from the University of the Arts last May, won best animation with The Ballad of Thaddeus Lowe, the film about the 19th-century hot air balloon spy.
Festival organizers also used the event to announce the creation of GPSFF Connect, an online tool for area film students to find projects to work on and others to collaborate with on their films.
College sophomore Amber Weekes said she appreciated the conglomeration of area college students.
"I thought it was fun to meet [students] from other schools that I don't usually interact with," she said.
