This week we implemented something new for our Indie Filmmaker’s nites. Although we always have a crowd of spectators to view films, attendance from new filmmakers has been dropping. So to encourage our fellow media colleagues to come out of the woodwork, we’ve changed the indie screening night to a mini film festival in hopes that it would excite more filmmakers to come and screen their work. Well we were successful. We are pleased to announce our first winner – Elizabeth Hatcher!
Elizabeth is a young film major at De Anza Junior College. She has been attending our films nights for quite sometime but it has only be recently that we were able to convince her to come out of her shell and show her stuff. What great reception she received for her first showing too walking away with $55 bucks as a reward for being tonight’s audience fave. Her film, Bear, is a story about a young girl packing to leave for college. The girl hesitantly decides to leave her favorite teddy bear behind (she is going to college after all) but Bear has other plans. Elizabeth explains to the audience that this film was an assignment she created for two of her classes. She specifically chose to use stop-motion for the bear because she felt it was better for the story than basic puppetry.
Donna (a cafe and Indie Film Nite regular) tells us, “Bear was cute and funny. It made me feel good.”
The winning film was a pleasant surprise considering most were convinced that the French film submitted by Serena Toxicat was going to be the sure-fire champ of the evening. Raising the stakes with a bit competition and a cash prize has really invigorated our Wednesday night screenings and put a little buzz in the air.
When asked how he felt the Indie Film evenings were going, Smokey (local film buff and proprietor of the cafe) replies, “Wednesdays are the most exciting nights we have here at the Day of the Dead and I really enjoy the films.”
Shot on black and white film in with the use of stop-motion animation, Bear is a delightful story depicting those sentimental attachments we carry with us into adulthood. Congratulations, Elizabeth. Thanks for sharing your film with us and we expect to see more!
Do you have films you wish to show? Wanna chance win a bit of ca$h? Join us every Wednesday night at the Day of the Dead Cafe!
Admission: $5 per submitted piece
To RSVP or for more info: cafedeadscreening@gmail.com
Day of the Dead Café
3208 Grand Ave
(next to the Grand Lake Theater)
Oakland CA 94610
(510) 325 3113
http://www.gunghogirl.com/cafedeadscreening/