After a mere 48 hours of writing, shooting and producing a film, a few of Bowdoin’s most driven filmmakers are ready to present their work.
The seventh annual 48-Hour Film Festival, presented by the Bowdoin Film Society (BFS), is scheduled to take place this Saturday. The screening will be held at 7 p.m. in Smith Auditorium in Sills Hall.
The highlight of the festival is its unique, time-restricted but relaxed nature. After the announcement of the rules, contestants have two days to produce their films and turn them in to the judges.
“I think it’s really interesting to see what people can come up with in a really short amount of time,” Ryan Szantyr ’16 said.
Every year, the festival’s judges impose two challenges in addition to the time limit. This year, each entry had to prominently feature a stuffed animal and play 10 seconds from a song chosen out of a hat.
“You end up with some bizarre solutions to some problems that come up. People have to make decisions really quickly, whereas in a regular film production those decisions will be thought out a little bit more,” Szantyr said. “It was really interesting to see how people incorporated the elements they didn’t even know would be part of the film until right before they began.”
The winning film will be awarded a prize by a panel of three judges, Isabelle Markert ’15, Szantyr and Tanisha Francis ’18. A viewers’ choice award was presented in previous years, but this year’s festival will only feature two films because only two films were submitted to the competition.
“Being into film at Bowdoin, it’s really cool that we have an event where there’s not pressure to make some amazing film. It’s just about being innovative and taking what it is that you’re given and running with the first idea in your head,” Markert said.
President of BFS Nick Magalhães ’15 and Mark Endrizzi ’15 produced “Run; Don’t Walk.” Noah Bragg ’15 and Alex Sutula ’13 produced “Dollhouse.”
The first is a three-minute film featuring a chase scene through the woods, while experimenting with the role of time.
“It is most simply a zombie movie. It has a nice sort of structure to it; it doesn’t play out in a linear setup,” Magalhães said.
Magalhães has contributed to the 48-Hour Film Festival in each of his four years at Bowdoin and drew on his past experience for this year’s production.
“Whenever I make a movie for the 48-Hour Film Festival I like to get one idea and keep it as simple as possible because we have so little time, so I kind of wanted to make a movie in reverse and it built from there,” he said.
For the filmmakers, it is the time crunch, not the extra criteria, that ends up being the most challenging aspect.
“The criteria weren’t so bad. You can use a song ironically or to match a mood, so a song is pretty versatile,” Magalhães said. “The stuffed animal was also not too bad, though of the two criteria, that was the one I found the silliest. The time restriction is the hardest part of it.”
Participants benefit not only from making their own films, but from viewing those of others.
“Some people have really vivid, wonderful imaginations and can read a book and go to another world, but when you see someone else’s other world in front of you it can transform your experience,” Magalhães said.
Following this Saturday’s festival screening, BFS will continue to play movies on weekend evenings after the upcoming Thanksgiving break. The first weekend back will feature “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Obvious Child.