Mary Washington student filmmakers rolled out the red carpet one Friday in February not only to showcase their works, but also to raise money for orphaned Honduran children. As the cameras rolled, students strolled over the red carpet draped from a limo parked on Double Drive to the entrance of George Washington Hall. Two emcees chatted with student film “stars” and directors, à la Joan and Melissa Rivers, as video of their grand entrances played in Dodd Auditorium, home to the Student Senate Third Annual Short Film Festival, The Spectacle.
Eleven hundred students, faculty, family and friends crowded into Dodd to view 11 student films, five of which won prizes. Before the festival, a panel of faculty and students judged the 14 films submitted to the contest; they chose not only which would be featured, but also which would receive honors.
Dylan Tuccillo ’08 won first place for his animated Coffee Break Island. Maura Pond ’06 followed in second place with Bounty, and Elise M. Tobin ’06 rounded out the 3-to-15-minute category with her film Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot! Jason Dunne ’07 took home the top prize in the 60-second and under category for Father.
One film, though, received a standing ovation and the “Film of the Festival” award given to a movie that doesn’t fit into the standard narrative category. Shin Fujiyama’s documentary, Copprome: A Hope for Honduras, consisted of footage the international affairs major had filmed while working in an orphanage in El Progreso, Honduras. Fujiyama ’07 had started his own nonprofit organization to help raise money for the orphanage; the film festival committee coordinated with him to collect donations during the night of the event.
“We felt very blessed to be in a position where we could help out with his cause,” said Tobin, founder and chair of the film festival. At the end of the night, Fujiyama had collected more than $2,000 from the audience, and Tuccillo added his $400 first-prize winnings. Learn more about the Honduaran orphanage project at www.StudentsHelpingHonduras.org.
Photo: Shin Fujiyama’s Copprome won “film of the festival” at the annual UMW Film Fest. In this still from the movie, children at the Copprome orphanage in Honduras receive notebooks for Christmas.