Get the Popcorn!
A&S Online’s first film festival offers up movies from students, faculty and alumni.
By Sally Ruth Bourrie and Samantha Lowery (English ’10)Posted May 21, 2008, 3:32 PM EST
Welcome to the A&S Online online film festival! Below you’ll find links to trailers and films by College of Arts & Sciences alumni, faculty and students that not only showcase the wide-ranging talent of the College community, but also provide a glimpse into the many aspects of the film medium.
We at A&S Online are excited about using our medium, the Internet, to make this work easily available to our readers. Please let us know what you think, what improvements we could make, and give us your ideas for stories that are best told in an electronic format.
Now, get out the popcorn and enjoy!
Alumni
Rom Alejandro, Jr. (Interdisciplinary Media Studies ’07)
Rom Alejandro made his first movie, a mockumentary called Asian Hoop Dreams, with his best friend when he was 15. He fostered his passion for film at U.Va. through organizations like Cavalier Broadcasting and events like the Salmagundi Film Festival. Alejandro currently lives in Hollywood.
Watch his films
Temple Brown (Economics ’85)
The subjects of Temple Brown’s work range from the birth of soul music to academic orientation and recruiting. Brown’s film Boxing’s Been Good to Me, his graduate thesis, has competed at many film festivals abroad, including the Deauville Festival of American Film in France.
Watch his film Boxing’s Been Good to Me
Perrin Chiles (Economics, History ’99)
Through In Effect Films, Perrin Chiles uses his venture-capital experience to create entertaining films that are socially conscious, commercially viable and philanthropic.
Learn more about his film Autism: The Musical
Eleanor Earl (Rhetoric and Communication Studies ’93)
Eleanor Earl earned an M.F.A. from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and has taught communications, English and humanities at various universities, including Pepperdine University in California, for ten years.
Watch her film The Father Figure Movement
Martha Elcan (AA Drama, Psychology ’76)
After she graduated from U.Va., Martha Elcan served as an assistant director for many films, including Steel Magnolias, Mystic Pizza and Driving Miss Daisy. She recently produced her first full-length feature film, Next of Kin.
Check out her Director’s Reel
Anna Ferrarie (English Language and Literature ’02)
Anna Ferrarie created a feature-length documentary about the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in North Carolina that helps aging southern musicians.
Watch the trailer for her film Toot Blues
John Hennegan (History ’90)
John Hennegan’s documentary The First Saturday in May tells the story of six hard-working trainers who compete to be selected to participate in the 2006 Kentucky Derby. The film, which premiered in theaters nationwide this April, also features the beloved thoroughbred champion Barbaro.
Watch the trailer for his film The First Saturday in May
Mark Johnson (College ’71)
Producer Mark Johnson of Gran Via Productions won the Best Picture Academy Award for Barry Levinson’s poignant 1988 drama Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman (Best Actor Oscar) and Tom Cruise, one of many movies their 12-year partnership produced. Since establishing his own company in 1994, Johnson has won multiple awards and pleased vast audiences with films ranging from John Cassavetes’ The Notebook to The Chronicles of Narnia.
Check out Johnson’s newest release: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Perry Moore (English ’94)
Perry Moore made headlines as executive producer of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Check out Moore’s newest release: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Andi Olsen (BA Art History ’82, MA Art History ’85)
Much of Andi Olsen’s work revolves around the concept of monstrosity, a theme that she explores thoroughly in her mixed-media project Hideous Beauties: A Freak Show. In Where the Smiling Ends, Olsen focuses her video camera on people being photographed. As anonymous tourists get their pictures taken by others, Olsen—unbeknownst to the subjects—observes the moment after the shutter-click when public smile fades back into private reality.
Lance Olsen (MA English Language and Literature ’82, PhD English Language and Literature ’85) with collaborator Andi Olsen (BA Art History ’82, MA Art History ’85)
In addition to serving as associate editor at American Book Review and as fiction editor atWestern Humanities Review, Lance Olsen teaches classes on fiction writing at the University of Utah and publishes his work in newspapers, magazines and various prominent literary publications.
Watch his film Come Taste My Hand
Han West (English Language and Literature, Media Studies ’07)
Han West’s films boast titles such as Brothers Manor, Monday, Do You Still Love Me?,Commercial Break and Happy Birthday, Grandma. He participated in the 2006 Virginia Film Festival and the Volvo Adrenaline Film Project.
Watch the trailer for his film Brothers Manor
Faculty
Kevin Jerome Everson, Associate Professor, Department of Art
Kevin Everson seeks to use his films to portray the challenges that people of African descent encounter in their everyday lives. Within the past 12 years, Everson has produced three feature films and almost 50 short digital films about the experiences of working class black Americans. Ed Halter of the Village Voice calls Everson “[a] wildly prolific filmmaker who investigates the African-American past, class identity, and the practice of artmaking with a visual aesthetic so withholding that Charles Burnett seems florid by comparison … ”
Watch his films
Lydia Moyer, Assistant Professor, Department of Art
Lydia Moyer gleans the style of her films from her fine arts background and from the time she spent learning about documentaries and the media’s role in social justice at a nonprofit community media center in Appalachian Kentucky.
Watch her films
Paul Wagner, Adjunct Faculty, Department of Media Studies
An adjunct faculty member in the Department of Media Studies, Paul Wagner has been producing and directing award-winning films for 25 years. His documentaries include The Stone Carvers (Emmy Award and Academy Award, PBS broadcast 1985); Out of Ireland, The Story of Irish Emigration to America (Sundance Film Festival, PBS 1995); Signature: George C. Wolfe(National Educational Telecommunications Association Best Public Television Program of the Year, PBS 1996); and A Paralyzing Fear, The Story of Polio in America (Emmy Award, Eric Barnouw Award for Best Historical Film of 1998, PBS 1998). His narrative feature, Windhorse(Toronto, Rotterdam, Tokyo Film Festivals, Best U.S Feature/Best Director Santa Barbara Film Festival, U.S. theatrical release by Shadow Distribution), is a story about cultural conflict filmed on location in Tibet and Nepal.
Watch the trailer for his film Windhorse
Meredith Jung-En Woo, Dean of U.Va.’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Dean Woo produced Koryo Saram with the help of David Chung (Studio Art), director of the film, and Pooh Johnston (Music ’80), composer of the film’s musical score. Koryo Saram tells the story of Stalin’s first ethnic cleansing of Russia in 1937, which sent 200,000 Koreans to Kazakhstan.
Watch the trailer for her documentary Koryo Saram
William Wylie, Associate Professor, Department of Art
William Wylie teaches photography at U.Va. In 2000, he began a photo project in Carrara, Italy, and has since then created a film, Carrara, about the marble quarry workers there.
Watch the trailer for his film Carrara
Check out his photos here and here
Students
2008 Class Film
Using clips of students sitting in rocking chairs on the Lawn and participating in other unique U.Va. activities, the 2008 class film provides graduating fourth-years’ perspectives of U.Va. to capture the essence of college life at the University.
Watch trailers and teasers
Nicholas Bransome Bacon (Classics, Studio Art ’08)
Nick Bacon strives to show the significance of ideas and materials that various societies, particularly ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, have cast aside and replaced with new ones. His film The Carousel won the award for Best Documentary in the Adobe Reel Ideas Studio Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007.
Watch his films
Konstantin Brazhnik (Physics, Studio Art ’07)
Konstantin Brazhnik began creating films as a high schooler in Blacksburg, Va., and developed his style and concept of filmmaking under Kevin Everson’s instruction at U.Va. Two of his most recent films, Shower Photos and Drug Lady, demonstrate Brazhnik’s flair for evoking a strong impression of reality.
Watch the trailer for his film The Purple Pileus
Jedidiah Crews (Foreign Affairs, Religious Studies ’08) and Steven Quinn(Interdisciplinary- Neuroscience ’08)
Jedidiah Crews and Steven Quinn worked together to produce Tonight, a short film about what happens when happiness and remorse collide.
Watch their film Tonight
Emily Hamel (Psychology, Studio Art ’08)
Emily Hamel gravitated toward filmmaking when she was growing up in Houston, Texas. Professor Lisa Moyer’s animation class inspired her to create her short film The Life and Times of a Dust Bunny.
Watch her films
Soo Jung (Studio Art ’08)
Soo Jung incorporates her interest in gender issues into her films by showing women actively engaging with onlookers. Last year she completed a project using Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring as a frame of reference.
Watch her films
Andrew Mausert-Mooney (Media Studies, Studio Art ’08)
Andrew Mausert-Mooney is intrigued by the concept of pursuing the impossible. He depicts this subject in his films via methods that transcend facades and reveal deeper meanings.
Watch the trailer for his film flok
Min Hee Park (GND/Visiting Student ’11)
Min Hee Park believes that “movies should bring hope to the people who watch them.” In The Girl on Wheels, she sketched a poignant portrait of her friend Erin Park (no relation), a U.Va. student whom Min Hee celebrates for “creating an atmosphere for people so that they never have to feel sorry or even uncomfortable around her.”
Watch her film The Article
Evan Parter (Economics ’08)
In addition to making films, Evan Parter enjoys writing fiction and short stories. He also works at Light House Studio in Charlottesville, where he teaches middle school and high school students how to make their own short films.
Watch his films: The Purple Pileus, Sunny Side Down
Steven Quinn (Interdisciplinary- Neuroscience ’08) and Jedidiah Crews (Foreign Affairs, Religious Studies ’08)
Jedidiah Crews and Steven Quinn worked together to produce Tonight, a short film about what happens when happiness and remorse collide.
Watch their film Tonight
Laura Scott (English Language and Literature ’08)
During her time at U.Va., Laura Scott served as producer, production designer, graphic artist, art director and actress for many films. She also organized publicity for the 2007 Virginia Film Festival.
Watch her films
Christina Tkacik (History ’08)
Christina Tkacik found the filmmaking resources she’d been looking for in Kevin Everson’s cinematography class at U.Va. She enjoys interviewing her friends and family for her documentaries.
Watch her films
Gretel Truong (Interdisciplinary- Integrated Film and Media Application ’08)
In response to the lack of ethnic diversity in popular media, Gretel Truong used her film The Write Note to tell stories that show interaction between people of different races and ethnic backgrounds. The Write Note includes shots from high schools, houses and other locations in Arlington, Va., where, with the support of the U.Va. FilmMakers Society, Truong and other U.Va. students filmed scenes.
Watch the trailer for her film The Write Note
Elliott Woods (English Language and Literature ’08)
After he completed a year of military service in Iraq, Elliott Woods created a documentary film called A Few Unforeseen Things that tells the stories of 21st-century war veterans.
Watch the trailer for his film A Few Unforeseen Things
… And More
Get up to date with what’s happening on Grounds. Check out the University’s videos of events, lectures, etc.
The FilmMakers Society at the University of Virginia
The Volvo Adrenaline Film Project
2007 Adrenaline Film Project films in Arts & Sciences
