By Amy Eisen, News Correspondent
The Oscars, or rather their campus equivalents, have been awarded to the winning films from this year’s Northeastern Campus MovieFest (CMF) competition, an international student film festival. Each of the 128 teams had one week to create a film of five minutes or less and on March 28, the awards for best comedy, best drama and best picture were presented to the three student filmmakers from each team who will move on to the finals in Hollywood, where they will have the chance to attend industry workshops, meetings and parties, and have a chance to win prizes, including a sum of $30,000.
This year had record-breaking participation for Northeastern, which, through NUTV, has been involved with CMF for eight years. One hundred twenty eight teams signed up, and 1,650 students were involved in making the 50 movies that were submitted.
CMF promotions manager Nishant Gogna seemed pleased with the number of participants as well as the turnout of audience in the finale.
“That’s a record number of movies and groups from Northeastern,” he said. “And the quality was amazing, I was blown away.”
As CMF has more than 70 colleges across the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom to visit, Northeastern was grouped in the Florida-Boston Tour, or Flo-Bo and was the only northern school in the heart of Boston.
“That’s why we like it at Northeastern,” Gogna said. “Boston’s like a college town on steroids. It’s a hub of education and the creativity is just beaming.”
The creativity was evident during the awards ceremony, which screened the top 16 films chosen by a panel of Northeastern students, staff and faculty. The lecture hall in West Village F was packed, exceeding its 220 person capacity as people sat on the stairs in order to see the films. The films varied in nature, from sweet and romantic to nearly riotous.
The ceremony was hosted by CMF representative Jaime Curtis and NUTV member Neil McCarthy.
“We normally don’t get this many comedies,” Curtis said after all the films had been screened. “You guys are very funny.”
The audience seemed to agree, and many of the films, including best comedy winner “Library: A Quiet Film,” filled the room with laughter. “Library,” one of several NUTV Production films to make it to the top 16, is a romantic comedy about how to quietly court a girl with books.
The film’s team captain Gordon Freas, a sophomore communications major, was surprised to win best comedy. “It was done on a whim, just four of us in an afternoon. It was a lot of fun and we all collaborated together on it.”
While the winner of best comedy was done on an impulse, the winner of best movie, “No Change,” had been a long time in the making, according to its team captain Rob Taylor, a junior communications major.
“I had the idea a long time ago; my life is ruled by math,” said Taylor of his film, a comedy about life presented as a series of statistics. “It’s really surprising to win, and really awesome.”
Best Drama went to “Flint,” a romance about a couples’ communication through a stuffed animal. Its team captain, Elena Guy, a senior cinema and communications dual major, is a recurring CMF champion who, during her acceptance speech, admitted she was shocked she won again.
The winners of best movie, comedy and drama move on to the Hollywood finals, as well as receive a plethora of prizes including an actual director’s chair, T-shirts, a year’s membership to Adobe Creative Cloud, the screening of their film at the Cannes Film Festival, and an invitation to the Distinguished Filmmakers Network.
There is one more way to get to Hollywood. Each school gets a wildcard spot, based on most online views by April 28, at which point the winner enters the national wildcard bracket for a chance to compete in the Hollywood finale. The wildcard spot is open to every Northeastern CMF entry and the films can be found on the CMF Northeastern University 2013 website.
The film currently in the lead is time-traveling drama “Reset,” which was nominated for best drama and won best directing and best actor for its leading character.
Colin Beatt, a junior graphic design major who was on the team of “Reset,” had moved on to the Hollywood finale last year, and is trying to use the wildcard competition to return.
“Hollywood was a lot of fun, the seminars, the meetings, it was a great experience,” Beatt said.
Beatt said this year’s filmmaking was nerve-wracking.
“We spent two days just converting and editing, right up until the last minute,” he said.
The participants seemed to agree that the filmmaking process, cut down to one week, yields great benefits despite its intensity.
“This gives me something for my reel and experience in how to make a film. Although a short, it’s still a pretty good film,” said Anthony Vitale, a middler communications major.
While making a movie in only one week is sure to bring stressful days and late nights, it did not stop Northeastern students from entering the competition by the hundreds. The school competition was tough, but for three, or maybe four, Northeastern groups, the pool is about to get a lot deeper in Hollywood.
