It’s not exactly Cannes, but about a thousand people watched the
work of local film-makers, including several from San Benito
County, during Morgan Hill’s first-ever Poppy Jasper Film Festival
last weekend.
It’s not exactly Cannes, but about a thousand people watched the work of local film-makers, including several from San Benito County, during Morgan Hill’s first-ever Poppy Jasper Film Festival last weekend.
The premier event was such a hit, according to Festival chair Kim Bush at Sunday’s award ceremony, that it posted a modest profit and will return in November 2005.
“We are in the black, and we’re most definitely going to be here next year,” she said with genuine enthusiasm.
More than 200 people attended Friday night’s opening kick-off that screened a selection of five “Jurors’s Choice” films at downtown Morgan Hill’s Granada Theater.
Film critic James Quillinan, who runs the Q’s Reviews film commentary Web site (www.qsreviews.com), gave the festival’s kick-off films a positive review.
“We go to a lot of movies, and we never see (short films) like these,” he said in the theater’s lobby after the screening. “It’s really, really fun to find shorts to see that are really worth seeing.”
The Poppy Jasper Film Festival is named after the semi-precious gemstone unique to Morgan Hill. It focuses on short independently-made films. It especially encourages local Steven Spielbergs to make documentaries and story-based movies focused on South Valley themes.
Sean Becker, a film major graduate at San Jose State University from Hollister, showed his film “PARALLEL/PARALLEL” on opening night. It is a split-screen glimpse at alternative realities set in a bizarre downtown San Jose where a life-sized “banana” man spins people into new reality options.
“I’ve been looking for something kind of short to do, and I thought I’d show two screens and kind of change reality and go from there,” he explained.
Another film shown Friday night received the “Judge’s Choice” award. Russian film-maker Nikita Keverov presented an “avant garde” flick full of surrealistic images.
“This film is a look at the inner mind of people,” he told the audience in explanation.
On Saturday morning, several films made by local children under 18 were screened at the Morgan Hill Playhouse.
The flick “My Rice: The Beginning” by Live Oak High School seniors Marius Layus and Billy Wong, both 17, is a comic action-adventure Chinese martial arts movie with a social message. Both boys wrote, directed, produced, videotaped, edited, and starred in the production which received the festival’s Student Award.
“There’s a shortage of rice in China,” Wong said in describing the story. “I’m a special agent, and I come to America. I go to this guy’s house and steal his rice.”
Film moderator Neil Thomas said he was amazed at the variety of short movies submitted by local children. Other kid films included the theft caper “The Dysfunctional Duo and the Case of the Missing Shoe,” and a historical re-enactment of “The Montgomery Bus Boycott” performed and filmed by fifth graders at The Charter School of Morgan Hill.
And the mushroom capitol’s own Chelsy Hice, 9, submitted a film about a local pioneer woman. “The Life and Times of Diana Murphy” was originally produced as a history project for her third grade class.
“It’s so exciting to see youths that are very involved in making something creative and then being able to share that with the community,” Thomas said.
Saturday afternoon, a variety of workshops on film-makers gave budding talent a chance to learn how to create independent movies. Saturday night, a theater full of film fans listened to Academy Award winner, visual effects wizard John Bruno share the secrets of making movie magic.
Bruno won for the ground-breaking effects for “The Abyss,” James Cameron’s 1989 undersea adventure.
“This is a short-film festival, which is really interesting to me,” he told audience members explaining why he came to Morgan Hill. “A lot of the other (festivals) are big-budget extravaganzas.”
Bravo grew up in the Monterey area. His career began while he was still a teenager working as the assistant to a syndicated cartoonist. In 1969, his artistic talents landed him a job for Walt Disney Studios. From there, he began moved on to designing the effects in movies such as “Young Frankenstein,” “Poltergeist,” “E.T.,” “Star Trek II,” “Ghostbusters,” “Titanic,” and other Hollywood blockbusters.
Morgan Hill resident William Leaman served as the impetus for the Poppy Jasper Film Festival when a need grew to find more South Valley-based videotaped films for local cable channel MHAT 19, said festival chair Bush. The idea snowballed.
“It’s grown just unbelievably, and the people who were involved in this film festival are also unbelievable,” she said, praising the many volunteers.
The film-makers themselves applauded the high standards achieved in the festival’s first year. Jean Buschmann, a former resident of Morgan Hill now living in San Jose, said festival organizers created a friendly and relaxed environment for film-makers to convene. Buschmann’s film – titled “Boxed In” – is about “a Latino odd couple stranded in an elevator… with a social message.”
Her husband, himself a professional film-maker, gave her encouragement to stretch her creative limbs in her first film, a “no-low production,” she said. “That means it has no or a low budget. I prefer that (description) to a shoestring.’.”
Hollister resident Scott Freund showed a 30-minute segment of his 3-hour documentary “The USS Arizona Revisited.” He collaborated with his friend Tim Csabanyi, a professional video producer, on this look at the 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
“I’ve always been very interested in military history,” Freund said, explaining why he decided to make the film.
Their documentary is the first one to interview survivors, he said. It is the most popular DVD sold at the Arizona Memorial’s gift shop in Hawaii, he said.
On Sunday morning, Morgan Hill resident Kristina Drzaic and her film partner Kateri McCarthy, both 21, showed their silent black-and-white 4-minute romance story “Roses are Red.” Both young women are senior film/TV majors at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.
“It’s a no-budget film,” Drzaic said of her submitted film. More than 50 people freely contributed their time and props.
Drzaic received the festival’s “Oxygen Award” co-presented with the Oxygen cable-TV channel for the best film by a woman.
“Her film was very clever,” Bush said in presenting the award on Sunday afternoon. “It was mischievous, it was fun, and it had a great twist at the end.”
Film judges chose South Valley resident Ron Ward’s “Harvest” to receive the Morgan Hill Award honoring a film directly dealing with the community. The film was made in 1985 and documents his grandfather Harold Ward’s memories of the South Valley farm industry. It was originally made as Ron’s film-school project at the University of Southern California.
“I can’t imagine a more warmer reception than the one I got in Morgan Hill this weekend,” he said after receiving his award, a glass trophy with a poppy jasper gem embedded into it. “I’ve never seen my film on a big screen, and that’s been very encouraging to me.” Event committee member Jay Jaso believes Morgan Hill’s first film festival achieved success because organizers decided not to compete with more established festivals which attract major Hollywood talent.
“There’s this home-town community spirit,” he said. “We try to give it a personal touch and make the film-makers feel welcome.”
