March 19, 2010

*'Charlie and the Rabbit' to be screened*

CSU Monterey Bay presents the Monterey Bay Film Festival on April 3 at the World Theater on Sixth Avenue. Doors will open at 12:30 p.m. and screenings will begin at 1 p.m. Admission and parking are free.

The festival is a multi-generational event where work by teenagers, college students and advanced filmmakers will be screened in one venue. The purpose of the festival is to give the community a chance to see films they might not have seen otherwise, while also featuring the work of teenagers and students.

"We're calling it 'CSU Monterey Bay Presents' because we want the campus and the community to feel like it's theirs," said Professor Enid Baxter Blader, chair of the Department of Teledramatic Arts and Technology. "It's also an opportunity to connect a festival to an educational institution."

The event expands on last year's Teen Film Festival. It includes a dozen shorts by teenagers, and five by the CSUMB students who worked with them. New this year is a program of 11 short films curated by Mike Plante, a programmer at the Sundance Film Festival since 2002 and director of programming with CineVegas for eight years.

Plante visited campus last spring as part of a program called "Seeing the Future of Film." He saw the potential of CSUMB's Teen Film Festival, wanted to build on that base and volunteered to work with Professor Blader to expand it

Among the films Plante has chosen to show is "Charlie and the Rabbit," created by CSUMB alumni Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck. Plante selected the film to be screened at Sundance in January; this showing will be its first local screening.

Hayley Allison, a student in Teledramatic Arts and Technology, produced the portion of the program featuring work by young people for her senior capstone project. More than 150 films by teenagers were submitted. The finalists were chosen by a panel of TAT students.

"The overarching theme of the work by young filmmakers was gang violence and how to prevent it," Professor Blader said.

Schedule:

12:30 p.m., doors open 1 p.m., Films by Young People (work by teenagers and college students) 2:15 p.m., reception and discussion with filmmakers 3 p.m., short films curated by Mike Plante

There's more information about the festival, including a list of the short films to be presented.