The annual Campus MovieFest at N.C. State wrapped up Saturday with a screening of the top 16 student films at Witherspoon Student Cinema. More than 70 teams entered this year’s competition, and a packed house waited to see what films would take top honors in 2013.
The event opened with a parody of last year’s winning short, “The Strong One.” Entitled “The Strong Two: Electric Bugaloo,” the short took the somber, reflective tone of “The Strong One” and turned it into an over-the-top, low-budget comedy.
This year’s competition saw a greater leaning toward the dramatic with more than half of the shorts screened being dramas. These films dealt with a wide variety of topics, including vengeance in “Out of the Game,” the threat of a stalker in “Her,” and the conceptions of a normal life in “An American Life.”
The big winner for drama was “Place Like Home.” Directed by Aaron Cook, a senior in film studies, and Will Howell, a junior in electrical engineering. The short dealt with a young couple who buys a new home only to discover it is haunted. “Place Like Home” won several awards, including Best Drama, Best Editing, Best Soundtrack and Best Actress for Morgan Piner, a junior in natural resources. This was Piner’s second consecutive Best Actress win, having received the award for Cook and Howell’s CMF 2012 entry “Fix.”
The comedy side may have had fewer entries, but the showcased films roused several laughs from the audience. “Dark Complexion Male” dealt with issues of racial profiling, with specific jabs at the Wolf Alert system, while “The Truth Seeker” focused on the absurd life of a conspiracy theorist and his twisted family.
A unique entry was “UMF Staff,” which was shown as a two-part short running over the standard five-minute limit. The film followed a group of judges for a student film festival that suffers through more than 100 terrible entries in a single night.
Sam Mazany, a junior in communication, wrote and directed “UMF Staff.”
“We couldn’t cut it down to five minutes,” Mazany said. “They said we could submit it in two parts, but they might not show them both. It was a gamble we had to take.”
Ultimately, the risk proved worth it, and “UMF Film” won the award for Best Comedy.
The night ended with the award for Best Picture, which was supposed to be presented by Nicholas Sailer, Josh Bielick and Tim Reavis, the team responsible for “The Strong One.”
However, as soon as the trio took to the stage, a mishap occurred that led to the winning film popping up on-screen before they could say anything. Though it was the show’s only major mishap, the blunder did manage to ruin the build-up to the night’s biggest award.
The winning film was “The Connection,” a short dealing with romance in the digital age. The film followed a young man, played by Conor Smith, who meets a woman, played by Lexie Dillon, on a video chat site. Playing to both comedic and dramatic elements, the short explored how online relationships have evolved in the past decade.
“With things like Skype, it’s almost like you’re there, but you’re not,” said Joshua Teder, a sophomore in management and writer/director of “The Connection.” “It’s about seeing what you can actually do in that [kind of relationship].”
“The Connection” will go on to the CMF event in Hollywood, where it will compete against films from across the country to try to bring a second win to the University.
Another film from this year’s competition, the winner of the Wild Card competition, will also have a chance to screen in Hollywood. The film with the most views at the CMF website by midnight on March 23 will be the winner. As such, students can find all of this year’s entries online and support their favorite.
