TAT alumni nominated for indie film honors
A feature film written and directed by a pair of CSU Monterey Bay graduates will compete at the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
In nominations announced Nov.23, Robert Machoian (TAT 2007) and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck (TAT 2009) received a nod in the Someone to Watch category for God Bless the Child, a 94-minute narrative feature film. The category recognizes filmmakers of “singular vision who have not yet received appropriate recognition,” according to the event’s website. The winner will receive a $25,000 grant.
God Bless the Child features Machoian’s five children, who range in age from 1-year-old Jonah to 13-year-old Harper, as a quintet of kids left to their own devices when it appears their mother may have abandoned them. Harper, the only girl, looks after her brothers as their day descends into fantasy and chaos. The film premiered at the South by Southwest festival and subsequently won Best Narrative Feature at the Atlanta Film Festival. It has been screened at festivals in Copenhagen, Torino and Geneva, among others.
The New York Times called it “extraordinary,” and the Wall Street Journal praised the “adroit direction of the filmmakers.” Machoian and Ojeda-Beck met as students in the Teledramatic Arts and Technology Department. They had different styles but found a third when working together. Charlie and the Rabbit, a film they collaborated on, screened at Sundance in 2010 and at more than 30 festivals. Three years later, Machoian returned to Sundance with two short films. In 2013,the pair’s first feature, Forty Years from Yesterday, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was shown at the Locarno festival in Switzerland. Machoian currently teaches photography and film in the Art Department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Ojeda-Beck teaches in CSUMB’s Cinematic Arts and Technology Department. The Independent Spirit Awards ceremony will be held Feb. 27 in Santa Monica.
Interviews with the filmmakers:
The film is available on Netflix
Published Nov. 25, 2015