School’s out

>>The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Film Fest spotlights a fresh crop
of young filmmakers

by MALCOLM FRASER

In celebration of its 35th anniversary, Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema is mounting a festival of work from this year’s graduates at the Cinéma du Parc. The “Best of the Fest” program is worth a peek for those interested in the visions of the freshest generation to be thrust out into the cold, cold world of the film industry.

In an age where bottom-of-the-barrel reality TV colludes with home-made YouTube videos toward a total degradation of visual craftsmanship, I was relieved to note that the overwhelming majority of the films display a strong grasp of aesthetics.

Yen Chao-Lin’s over no things has some particularly gorgeous abstract imagery. Jacquelyn Mills's For Wendy pulls off a rare feat: it’s not only beautifully shot and edited, but features an all-kid cast without ever once relying on cloying cuteness—unusual enough in a professional film, let alone a student production.

Marie-Ève Tremblay’s Mon pays bleu, the only straight documentary of the bunch, portrays a father and son discussing the appeal of their rural lifestyle in Lac St-Jean. Simple, straightforward and poignant, it’s as good as many documentaries being produced in the “real” world and indicates a promising future for its director. Giacomo Volpe’s Can You Read Me? starts with what seems like a serious (and annoying) technical problem, then turns out to be a clever conceptual game with the audience.

Jeanette Pope’s Up and Down the City Road is a tribute to the Boulevard St-Laurent of old, which, in her hypothesis, died along with two of its habitués, sculptor Stanley Lewis and animator/raconteur Ryan Larkin. An animated documentary assembled in a rough-hewn manner, it’s formally odd but sentimentally evocative. The program also includes strong animation work from Eva Cvijanovic, Nathan Boey, Alexandra Lemay and Maude Coudé.

As a grizzled film school veteran about to mark a bittersweet celebration of 10 years since graduation, I was pleasantly surprised: where many a student film is derivative, cynical and thrown together, this collection was largely creative, whimsical and well-crafted. To be sure, the filmmakers embody a certain naïve attitude, but that’s as it should be. May their innocence last as long as possible.

The 35th edition of the Mel
Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Film Fest plays at the Cinéma du
Parc from Friday, May 2 through
Thursday, May 8; the “Best of the
Fest” program shows on
Thursday, May 8 at 7 p.m.

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