CaMS Fest: Celebrating 5 Extraordinary Years of Individuality and Unity amongst CaMS Students
Friday, April 5th 2024, was a tumultuous day of wind, rain, and even unexpected hail, but nothing could stop passionate Cinema and Media Studies (CaMS) students from gathering in Norris Theatre for the fifth annual CaMS Fest. The student film festival was established to highlight the work and passion of CaMS students from all years and backgrounds. This year, there were twelve films chosen to encapsulate the diverse perspectives and motivations of CaMS majors; including animation, experimental, satire, and narrative shorts. I was lucky enough to attend my first CaMS Fest with fellow classmates to experience and appreciate the work of our storied division.
Walk With The Devil | ZuYe "Joey" Lui: The only animated film of the program, this first one stood out to me in retrospect for its whimsical and cartoonish style and sound. This spring was Lui's last semester at USC, and this film captured the nuance of a filmmaker who is conscious of their strengths and voice. The 2-D sketch style animation provided an interesting perspective on grief focused on a character undergoing a transformative healing process that was anything but simple.
Roses | Lydia Acevedo: My favorite film of the program. The layering and voiceovers the film utilized to convey generational pain were incredibly powerful in communicating the passing of a haunting responsibility between mothers. The narration in the short describes the gravitational pull female familial relationships have despite rifts and the overwhelming responsibility of being forced into a position of caretaking. Every second was crafted with care, such as a moment when there was an overlay of shots clouding the screen while the narrator described their inability to be transparent with her emotions. Specific artistic choices like these stuck with me throughout the entire night, long after leaving the theater.
Paper UFOs | Stanley Lin: The theme of feeling a natural inclination to creative work was sure to hit home with the CaMS audience (especially the line about taking an unpaid internship for experience). Lin took on conversations about grief and artistry with grace in a story about an Asian American film student discovering her father's abandoned dream as a cartoonist while visiting her mother's gravesite. There is a beauty in acknowledging that many people feel a natural gravitational pull towards a lifestyle of creating art and storytelling, especially in an audience of film students. It was inspiring to hear about the 40+ person cast and crew that brought this story about parental acceptance to life.
We Were Girls Together | Valentina Navarro-Marsili: I believe the director put it best: this was a portrayal of girlhood and OCD that was raw and anything but reductive. This short juxtaposes sequences from a sleepover between friends with the protagonist's silent struggles–overthinking, engaging in self-doubt, and feeling uncomfortable in her own body. The characters had palpable chemistry on screen that made the relief of a friend's comfort believable for the protagonist's well-being. The scenes of painting nails and giggling instantly transported me to sleepovers with my friends. I sincerely enjoyed the portrayal of female friendship providing a sense of tranquility through the paranoia and stresses of life.
Sudden Birth | Cheyenne Terborg: A compilation of archival footage in a way I have never seen before. Terborg described her process exploring on archive.org, the internet's "way back machine." Her joy came from finding obscure footage, such as a police training video about birthing a child (which inspired the film's title). The different clips were manipulated to fit the continuously unsettling and dystopian visual tone, with the eerie reminder that this found footage is all real life documentation of real people–much of the footage being unprofessionally shot home videos. A true portrait of human life in a multitude of functions and perspectives.
Todo a Su Tiempo | Daze Cornejo: The director utilized this film to transform their painful life experiences into a healing narrative. A perfect example of visual and auditory diaries meeting and melding elegantly, this short film took home the Audience Choice and Faculty Favorite Awards. The director stepped outside of themselves and incorporated interviews from multiple generations in their family, providing a present-day portrait of a healthy conversation about mental health and mindfulness. Displayed through the accolades this film received, it proved the incomparable value of a unique and genuine artistic voice.
Missed Connections | Joshua Silva: The most USC-specific short film of the program, the director's experimental style was able to get laughs from the audience and pay homage to one of USC's most treasured Instagram accounts. @USC.missedconnections allows students to submit anonymous messages to campus crushes through a Google Form. With the user’s permission, those messages may then be posted for the account's over 11,000 followers to see and engage with. Silva implores to ask: what do we really think we know about people just by looking at them? Images of different women flash across the screen as the narrator drafts a submission to missed connections, questioning his own memory and motivations.
EMETOPHILE | Colin Kerekes: Winner of the Screening Committee Selection Award, this satirical film left a lasting impression on the audience. The lead performer captured a funny and unsettling vibe, fitting for the strange nature of a story about a man with a vomit fetish. Paired with the social commentary of what it means to classify oneself as "unique" and grotesque visuals of bodily fluids held in human hands, viewers had many reasons to squirm. A phenomenal example of the unique creativity of CaMS students.
Watch College Sophomores Disappear (In Real Time) | Matthew Chan: This short spoke to all sides of the college experience–it depicts the extremes of partying contrasted directly with solitude, as the images are projected over a figure sitting alone in their dorm room. I enjoyed the director's introduction with the sentiment that "we think about ourselves too much." Chan is able to use simple visuals to mobilize the concept that university is a time of introspection and self discovery. A true portrait of student life.
Daydreaming | Daniel Van: An idyllic depiction of finding peace in oneself through grief, as well as forming connections between honoring loved ones and finding enjoyment. A story about an actor learning to surf, this film communicates an important message to enjoy your activities and pursuits even when you do not excel. Van balances the protagonist's physical and emotional exercises on screen with ease. He emphasizes the beauty of embracing and finding acceptance in oneself by making mistakes.
Here's What I Can Remember | Avana Wang: I felt as if the director opened a bottle of homesickness and passed it around the theater. Wang's film is a recollection of influential family members in relation to trees and nature, all in a reflective tone. This analogy flows beautifully on screen and highlights the difficult change of moving locations throughout time. The imagery of nature featuring cicadas, leaves, and dried pine was guaranteed to make anyone feel separated from the mysticism of childhood.
Love and Death in the Dying Light of Hong Kong | Enoch Lai: The director introduced this film by describing his hope to convey a new portrayal of Hong Kong. Lai mentioned that many audiences see Hong Kong through the lens of Wong Kar-wai, and he wanted to share the city from his perspective which varies generationally. The longest film in the program, I found myself engrossed in Lai's story the entirety of the film's runtime. His depiction of the city was one of modernity, as the audience watched through the perspective of a young man wandering Hong Kong pondering his own relationship with love and death. The montage at the end spoke to the character and director's filmic inspirations and paid homage to his culture.
CaMS Fest was a wonderful event and opportunity for students to gather and support one another in their artistic endeavors. The themes of embracing individual autonomy through turmoil and finding community were fitting for the nature of this celebration. As a freshman in the CaMS program, each film and every filmmaker inspired me in different ways; it is just as important for our department to create art as it is to analyze and uplift it. I look forward to celebrating these artists as they continue to grow.