Three-Day Film Festival is Scary Success

The rules of the 72-hour Short Film Festival are simple: Students have 72 hours to write, direct, shoot and edit a four- to six-minute long film. The challenge began Friday, November 4 at 3 p.m. and concluded Monday night with a screening in Wollman Hall.

The event was sponsored by the Student Film Collective and this year’s theme was horror. To ensure contestants hadn’t come prepared with material made prior to the event, a list of requirements was compiled that each film had to meet. In addition to operating within the genre of horror, each film also had to include a lemon as a prop and the line of dialogue “That’s what happened last time.”

Four teams competed in the challenge and the films were screened on Monday evening as part of the final event, titled “The Killer Film Festival.” The films were judged based on originality, technical skills, and their creative incorporation of the above requirements. “Lemo’s Escape” by Tania Diaz-Flores was awarded the first place trophy, which, fittingly, was a golden axe. “Dirty Lemons” was selected as the audience’s favorite, earning the prize of a $20 gift certificate to AMC Lowes.

“Dirty Lemons” by Jonathon Castro and Tiffany-Liana Williams, which was voted the audience’s favorite, was a mockumentary horror film that also had a touch of comedy. The main character is shown filming his experience from an iPhone as he follows a trail of lemons that eventually lead him to being murdered.

The winning film, “Lemo’s Escape,” used lemons with faces drawn on them as its characters. It showed the lemons attempting to escape from the kitchen and getting scared away by a little, white dog.

This is the 72-Hour Short Film Challenge’s first year, but founder and president of the Student Film Collective, Joseph Eulo, told the Free Press that he hopes to make it a annual event. He is also in the process of organizing a seven-day documentary challenge to happen sometime next year.

Although Eulo said the Student Film Collective was “born out of the need for community at The New School” only 10 out of the collective’s 180 members attended the kick-off party held last Friday afternoon in room D1009 of the 6 E. 16 St. building, where participates organized themselves into teams and the rules of the challenge were announced.

“I’m disappointed with the turn out,” said Matthew Kotowski, organizer of the festival,“but it’s our first year and this is a learning experience.”

However, despite the low turn out, the students who did attend the kick-off seemed excited to take on the challenge of making a film over the course of a weekend.

“I love film and I just bought a new camera,” said Tiffanie Drayton, a student at the New School for Public Engagement, “and even though I totally hate horror movies, this is a great learning opportunity, since it forces me to try something knew.”

Although Drayton was apprehensive about making a horror film at first, her film, titled “Black and White,” was the only film in the festival that had the look and feel a true horror film. It had the mise-en-scène of a classic film noir and featured a femme fatale inspired character, which she played herself.

The other contestants, such as Payton Mitchall, a New School student, took a different approach to the genre and decided to mix horror with a touch of humor. His film, “Social Recluse 72,” played off the idiom “when life throws you lemons make lemonade.” In the film, a man, who is shown in the opening scene making lemonade with his girlfriend, is haunted by lemons later that night.

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” said Mitchall about making a film in 72 hours. “You just had to be motivated. Incorporating the lemon was the hardest part and that’s why I decided to make it a horror-comedy. How scary can a lemon be?”

About 40 people attended the screening on Monday night and enjoyed drinks and refreshments, while watching the films. One audience member, Kiri Davis, said she was very impressed by the four films and admired their creativity. “For being made in 72 hours they weren’t bad at all. They were very funny and creative. People came up with some very cool ways to incorporate the lemon,” Davis said.