By Jeanine Budd

Students walked the red carpet last night into a full Curry Student Center Ballroom to watch 16 movies for Campus MovieFest’s Northeastern finale. The films shown ranged from dramatic to funny, action-packed to educational.

The Campus MovieFest was sponsored by AT’T, and featured 56 Northeastern student groups this year, who were each given the materials needed to create a film that could be no longer than five minutes. Last night was a showcase of the top 16 choices, chosen by the Campus MovieFest judges.

“I think the fact that students get to make movies is unique,” said Ashley Vanderbeck, a middler journalism major. “They just give you the equipment and it’s for free and you just do it. ”

The annual Campus MovieFest is the world’s largest student film festival, and the Northeastern award-winners will continue on to the Boston Grand Finale April 26.

One of last night’s films, titled “Face Tomorrow,” stood out as the only documentary. It featured interviews with a number of randomly selected Northeastern students and asked them if they had a Facebook account (to which all of them answered “yes”) and if they were registered to vote (to which many answered “no”).

“It’s just easier to be on Facebook,” said one of the students interviewed. “[Voting] is too much thinking.”

Another film that stood out as one of the few with a serious theme was “Genesis 3:23,” which won “Best Drama.” The film featured themes of heroin addiction, prostitution and depression, overlayed by the deeper theme of Bible verse 3:23 from the book of Genesis.

The night also featured many comedies, one of which was a spin-off on “The Office” called “The Workplace,” which took place in what appeared to be a telemarketing center, where employees were competing to make the most sales in order to win a free box of 11 donuts.

Another light-hearted comedy was “The Adventures of Fajita and Quesadilla,” which was nominated for “Best Picture.” It was a mockumentary about the filming of a children’s show, where the actor who played “Quesadilla” annoyed “Fajita” because he was too horny and inappropriate on the set.

The 12th film of the night, “Gazebo Killer 2,” was a cheesy detective comedy with a lot of donuts and coffee thrown around, alongside numerous curse-laden interjections and a surprise ending.

The “Best Picture” winner was “Poke,” a film about a college student who is using Facebook to stalk a girl he has a crush on. One night, while doing so, he gets in a brief spat with his roommate, who accidentally hits the “poke” button on the popular website. In an attempt to “intercept” the poke by climbing into the girl’s apartment through her window, the two students clumsily spur a chain of events that culminate in the room’s destruction.

“Poke” also won the award for “Best Use of Mobile,” which was new to this year’s competition.

Jonathan Cohn, a senior electrical and computer engineering major, said most of the filming for “Poke” was done in about two days, due to the team members’ busy schedules.

“What we realized is that we’re seniors and we had a lot of classes,” he said. “We filmed Thursday night for two hours, then we filmed Friday from noon until 11 p.m. and editing happened Saturday afternoon.”

Cohn said that while comedy was out of his comfort zone, he felt that what his group created was important to the screen in terms of comedic elements.

Two members from the group who created “Genesis 3:23,” Douglas and Mike Quill, both said that while they didn’t agree with the decision of the judges to grant “Poke” with the honors of “Best Picture,” that the filmmakers behind “Poke” did a good job. The Quill brothers’ film, “Departure,” won “Best Picture” at last year’s Northeastern finale.

“I disagree with the results, but I feel that my team succeeded. I feel that we made what we wanted to make and we told the story that we wanted to tell,” Douglas Quill said.

Demetri Marinides, a junior journalism major and one of the students who participated, said the enjoyment of the competition was enough to validate the work put in.

“It’s just fun to do something creative like this, and they give you all the equipment,” he said. “You get to do something different.”