July 21, 2010

Filmmaker Magazine has honored CSU Monterey Bay alumni Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck.

The magazine, a quarterly publication and website devoted to independent film, named the pair to its annual list of "25 New Faces."

The list is the magazine's "bet on the individuals who will be shaping the independent film world of the future."

When Machoian (Class of '07) and Ojeda-Beck ('09) met as students in the Teledramatic Arts and Technology Department, they had different styles but found a third when working together.

The films they have made together display classic art house film style, according to the magazine. Visuals are the key, along with colorful imagery and solitary characters in simple situations, with editing that tells a story without much dialogue.

At CSUMB, their goal was to make as many films as they could over the course of a semester, resulting in 14 shorts. Ella and the Astronaut was shown at festivals all over the world, and Charlie and the Rabbit premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January.

They work collaboratively. After conversations about an idea, they talk out each scene on location, trading off filming and directing. They share editing duties.

Since graduating, they have made two seasons of their web series American Nobodies, short films profiling people in small towns.

"The documentaries we do are secondary to the experience we get having time with the individual people," Machoian told the magazine. "We've learned that Americans are amazingly compassionate people who are looking for such a small amount of joy in life . . . What they are interested in is putting food on the table, a roof over their head and having something in their life that they love to do."

Machoian has become the first TAT alumnus to get a university teaching job. He will teach full-time this autumn at CSU Sacramento, replacing a faculty member who is on leave. Ojeda-Beck has been accepted into the Master of Fine Arts program at UC Berkeley and been awarded a fellowship to help cover the cost.

The list is featured in the magazine's summer issue and can be found online at www.filmmakermagazine.com. Established in 1992, the publication covers the craft and business of filmmaking and has a readership of 60,000.

For more information:

American Nobodies can be viewed here.

View the trailer for Charlie and the Rabbithere.

View the trailer for Ella and the Astronauthere.

Read more about Machoian and Ojeda-Beck here.

Learn more about CSUMB's Teledramatic Arts and Technology Department here.

*Photo by Don PorterRobert Machoian (left) and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck talk with TAT department chair Enid Baxter Blader at a campus screening of Charlie and the Rabbit *