AVC Film Festival 'reel' thrill

By LAVENDER KEMBLE

Valley Press Staff Writer

First time director Roy Unger wanted to bring his dark vision of the future to the screen but didn't have the funding. So he pitched his idea to a group of Japanese karaoke video producers.

He consecutively shot two versions of his short film. One can be seen in bars across the country with the tiny ball bouncing over the song lyrics. The other version, "Requiem," made its way to film festivals in Spain, Britain, Chile, Germany and across the United States.

Antelope Valley College's forth annual Film Festival was No. 25 for "Requiem." Cinemaphiles, film students, Antelope Valley College faculty members and the curious were treated to Unger's technically sophisticated, shadowy Orwellian images, along with other short films, on Friday, the opening night of the festival

Saturday afternoon featured short films by AVC faculty members Davis Lewis and Salvador Litvak and Michael Traina's "Verses," shot at the former Hang'n Java coffeehouse in Lancaster with a local crew and extras. Saturday night, the audience was treated to the full length film "Screenplay," about a screenwriter who takes an agent hostage.

Festival programming director Traina estimated about 300 people attended the festival. He was pleased with the turnout. " The filmmakers left happy and the audience see happy," he said.

Friday's crowd jammed into the Movies 1-4 lobby and trailed into the darkened theater to feast their eyes on nine short films, each from five to 20-plus minutes long. Among the favorites were: James Michael Hughes' mockumentary, "Every Night and Twice on Sundays," about the life of Dorothy McHugh, the actress who appeared in the "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up" commercials: Joseph Anaya's " A Hollow Place," a chilling retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's The Telltale Heart": Shona McCullagh's "Hurtle," a surreal choreographed dance film with cavorting nuns: and Jonathan Bekemeier's bizarre "Titler," in which a transvestite Hitler look-alike sings pointed parodies of old songs.

Cheri Demucha, a student in Traina's mass communications class at AVC, thought the festival offered a "wide variety of film's". Her favorite was Michael Cargiles "The Light of Darkness," a suspense film with a twist ending. "I liked it because it was ironic," she said.

After the screening , Traina moderated a question and answer session with Unger and Chrisanne Eastwood, one of the actors in David Garrett's "Clown Car."

Unger talked about his unusual methods of funding and filming "Requiem." He jokingly said he shot his non-karaoke version of the film using a "really old World War II vintage camera" borrowed from "Titanic" director James Cameron. Unger who graduated from the University of Southern California's film school worked a s director of photography for Cameron on his Oscar-winning film.

"It's 'take no prisoners,'" he said. "If you're going to make a short film, you have to make it however you can."

Unger was also the director of photography on another of the festival's shorts, Daniel Lawrence's "Vigilance," in which a man waits up for the Angel of Death.