CalArts
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Tariq Tapa (mfa 08) traveled to Srinagar, Kashmir, to make Zero Bridge with a cast of first-time, nonprofessional actors, working with a technical crew of one—the filmmaker himself. Expat Theron Patterson (mfa 99) helmed the award-winning Turkish-language feature Bahti Kara (“Dark Cloud”), a dark structuredimprovisational family comedy set in Istanbul. C.W. Winter (mfa 07) teamed up with Anders Edström to make The Anchorage, a prizewinner at the 2009 Locarno International Film Festival, with Edström’s mother as an older woman exercising everyday routines while living alone on an island off the Swedish coast. Gregory Rentis’ (mfa 10) thesis film, Sundown, screened at last year’s Rotterdam festival, sets the story of a 13-year-old boy and his dying, Alzheimer’sstricken grandfather on the Greek island of Rhodes. Eliza Hittman’s (mfa 10) Sundance entry from this year, Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, is an emotionally complex coming-of-age drama with teen Russian immigrants in Brooklyn, with the dialogue mainly in Russian. Internationalism aside, “one of the distinguishing things about the narrative films by the students lately,” says Gary Mairs, “is that many of them are stories about very young people or very old people, not about 20-year-olds or 25-year-olds—often the curse of student films. This shows the filmmakers are trying to explore other lives and memories and not only their own experiences at the moment. They’re making personal works, made with personal conviction, that are not necessarily diaristic or autobiographical. I think that’s a feat.”
With dv gear stowed in his backpack, Tariq Tapa traveled to Kashmir and made Zero Bridge (India/usa, 2008, 96 min.) in a feat of endeavor and determination. The resulting portrait of a teenage pickpocket earned Tapa two Spirit Award nominations last year. “Gritty, powerful… a real find,” was Variety’s verdict. “Packs an impressive emotional wallop,” said the LA Weekly. Another CalArts thesis film, Gregory Rentis’ Sundown (Greece/usa, 2010, 15 min., Super 16mm), is enacted in Greek. “A lot of filmmakers overseas find their way here,” notes Gary Mairs, “because CalArts has such a strong international reputation and our films play internationally.”