Young Phillywood Takes Center Stage at Student Film Festival
PHILADELPHIA (March 20, 2008) — With an exponential rise in quality and quantity of submissions from local college filmmakers and a keynote address from an “A-List” Hollywood screenwriter, the curtain rises on the third act of the Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival on March 28 at 7 p.m. at Levitt Auditorium in Gershman Hall on the campus of The University of the Arts. Tickets are $9 and can be purchased at www.gpsff.com.
Students from 16 schools submitted over 120 films, vying for finalist spots in Comedy, Experimental, Documentary, Drama and Animation categories. In 2006, festival organizers hoped for enough submissions to even host a festival. They were not disappointed. In only a few months they received over 50 films and sold out the venue. Ever since, GPSFF has sustained tremendous growth with a 70 percent increase in submissions since its second festival in 2007.
With final nods in three categories, Penn undergraduate Kevin McMullin heads a list of student finalists from Penn, Rowan, Temple, UArts and Widener. Formerly part of the Experimental category, Animation is a stand-alone category this year and features five finalists from UArts. Standout entries in the Documentary category include Drexel student Brian Crawford’s “The Hammer and the Butterfly,” about a how a man who tries to explain his sex change to his family; and “Charlie and Guy,” about two Philadelphia homeless men and how they deal with life, money and friendship while living on Philly’s streets from UArts student Sam Nalband.
“Mona Lisa Smile” screenwriter Mark Rosenthal will deliver the keynote address. Currently, Rosenthal and his writing partner Lawrence Konner are working on scripts for “The A Team,” which John Singleton will direct for FOX, and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” starring Nicholas Cage at Disney. Over the past 25 years, Rosenthal has accumulated numerous writing credits, including “Eragon,” “The Planet of the Apes” and “Mighty Joe Young.”
In addition to a panel of student judges, all nominees passed through a panel of judges that included industry and academic professionals, including Hal Borden, intellectual property lawyer at Dechert, LLP; Dawn Wolfrom, producer of the 2005 Hilary Duff and Heather Locklear film “A Perfect Man;” Ben Katz, a Los Angeles-based independent film producer; Karl Staven, animator and chair of the UArts Media Arts Department; and Charlie Curran, executive producer for the award winning New York production firm Nola Pictures.
Inaugurated in 2006, the Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival (GPSFF) seeks to forge lasting connections between the city and its most talented filmmakers as an investment in Philadelphia's film industry. The festival is a necessary and beneficial component of the Philadelphia student community, providing an outlet for the students of Philadelphia to screen their work in front of a city-wide audience of their peers.
