From today through Sunday, the University’s first film festival surrounding Pacific-bordering countries, Cinema Pacific, will be screening films at the Bijou Arts Cinema, Robinson Theater and other locations.
Cinema Pacific’s director, Richard Herskowitz, said he still cannot believe the day has arrived. Although he has exhibited films at universities for nearly 30 years, this festival has posed a fresh challenge.
“It’s exhilarating. I’m rubbing my eyes,” Herskowitz said with wonder. “The organization is really only four months old.”
A year ago, the administration desired a public outreach venue in coordination with the University’s brand new cinema studies major and media management concentration in the arts and administration graduate program. Enter Herskowitz.
As a film scholar and fanatic who has always worked to earn deserving pieces of attention, his experience made him the perfect fit to get the festival off the ground. Tasked with creating a showcase that simultaneously educated the involved students and attendees, he began teaching a course on issues in film festival management in January. From there, the hard work commenced.
Arts and administration graduate student Tomas Valladares jumped at the chance to get involved. As someone with an undergraduate minor in cinema studies and directing and editing experience in documentaries, the outlet of film speaks to him.
“You’re given so much freedom,” he said. “You have dialogue. You have the visuals. And then you have the music that all enhances the story you’re trying to tell.”
Cinema studies major Stephanie Strahan used to be an actress, but she quit in the seventh grade when deemed too tall for a role.
“I obviously didn’t have the thick skin needed for acting,” she said with a laugh.
Strahan now leans toward film critique. “I just like how you can tell so many of the same stories, but from different artistic viewpoints,” she said. “Film is constantly updating itself.”
Valladares and Strahan coordinate the festival’s Adrenaline Film Project, which assigns teams of three filmmakers to various genres and asks them to create a narrative film in only 72 hours. While some may find the time duration nerve-wracking, Valladares sees it as a benefit.
“You create a vision, and all of a sudden, you have a final product that you can say, ‘I made this. I created this,’” he said.
AFP founder Jeff Wadlow and directors Romulo Alejandro and Scott Prendergast will offer guidance to each team along the way.
Every year, the festival will explore a country and host dialogues with prominent filmmakers and scholars about it. The choice to zone in on the Korean film industry went unquestioned. Herskowitz raves that Korean cinema is red-hot right now in the international scene. “Mother,” Saturday night’s feature film, directed by Bong Joon-ho, recently won Asian Film Awards for Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Screenwriter.
In addition to focusing on specific countries, Cinema Pacific has added another dimension to the standard arrangement by applying new media options. Their site links to several Korean films that Netflix members can stream before diving into the festival’s features.
“I knew that the old models of just featuring films projecting on a screen were not enough,” Herskowitz said. “Creating that kind of continuity from the online to the on-site experience is something I really felt was necessary.”
Herskowitz predicts that Cinema Pacific will grow into a destination that will teach audiences to enjoy films in a theatrical environment again. He also hopes to draw attention to the West Coast’s relevance with DisOrient, Eugene’s annual Asian-American film festival, and now the University’s Cinema Pacific.
“Eugene and the Northwest are really centers of Asian cinema appreciation,” he said.
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Pacific countries are festival’s focus
Daily Emerald
May 4, 2010
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