UFVA Student Film Fest

If you've ever had a friend in film school, you know how painful sitting through an evening of work by aspiring directors can be. There's the high school-level acting, the sloppy editing and half-baked premises (that is, if they're baked at all). The rare exception is the film that turns its back on Hollywood conventions and makes its low-budget restrictions an asset. The UFVA Student Film & Video Festival, now in its fourth year, seeks to find the notable out of the dreck. For the '96 season, they received 660 entries from 200 different film schools and narrowed the field down to 20 of the best. These will be screened on two different nights, Thursday, Sept. 19 and Tuesday, Sept. 24.

Even though both evenings have winners from all of the judged categories — narrative, experimental, documentary and animation — the collection on Thursday is a little more surreal and on Tuesday, more accessible.

Die Verlohrene Strasse (The Lost Street), a dark and ominous film from Germany, spearheads Thursday night's screening. In it, the residents of an East Berlin neighborhood are forced to evacuate to make way for a government disinfection campaign. The cinematography in this 27-minute, black-and-white film is easily the best of the festival. Director Marco Wilms creates a surreal, foreboding landscape out of the crumbling scenery with heavy use of shadows and dolly shots. Inside Your Medicine Cabinet combines computer animation and vintage medical footage in a slick and disturbing short about a future surgical theater where a computer assesses the patient and performs required operations. The rapid-fire editing is engrossing while the imagery is often just gross, but this six-minute short, filmed with a Betacam, is all done in good fun.

Don Hertzfeldt's Genre mocks various film conventions. Using an animated rabbit as his protagonist, Hertzfeldt draws him into a science fiction scenario, then buddy picture, comedy, horror film and porno. Plenty of ground is covered in just five minutes.

Ollie's Army, screening on Sept. 24, is a must-see for anyone who's ever hated Oliver North with a passion. NYU student Bret Morgen followed the James Madison University Republicans on their campaign to help get North elected to the Senate. Sure, the documentary's views are slanted — it opens with North admitting he lied to Congress — but the 59-minute video is a hoot-and-a-half. "Democracy has nothing to do with this process," comments one of the frat boy Republicans about the election. "It's all about money, and 20 million talks." Then he throws back a cold one.

Who ever thought a conversation with a bowl of oatmeal would make for intriguing cinema? Bowl of Oatmeal is the story of a paranoid shut-in who tries to take advice from his kvetching breakfast. The camerawork is basic, but the dry humor of the script keeps things moving. Another reason to cheer on Oatmeal is for co-creator Matt Bezanis, a Philly boy who's done good (at NYU's film school).

There are plenty of other good shorts, but if you can only go one night, make it the 24th.

UFVA Student Film & Video Festival, Thursday, Sept. 19 and Tuesday, Sept. 24, 7 p.m., International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 895-6542.

— Neil Gladstone