This weekend, six Yale students and three alumni will make the trip down to Rhode Island to participate in the third annual Ivy Film Festival at Brown University.
Out of the 200 submissions that the contest received from current and former Yale students, the festival chose seven to represent Yale: David Zax ’06, Steven Edell ’03, Jonathan Smith ’04, Debra Weinstein’ 04, and alumni Ross Wachsman ’02, Nathaniel Rothschild, and Tucker Capps ’02. Caitlin Taylor ’03, a former president of University Pictures, a student-run film company at Yale, will sit on a student panel to judge the films.
“I think that it’s a great time for film at Yale,” Taylor said. “I really think collaboration is important — the great thing about film is that you can’t do it alone; you need people supporting you.”
These students will face the precedent set by Tucker Capps ’02, who won the festival in its first year for his film “Clockwork,” set and produced in Prague. Though he has since graduated, Tucker will be returning to the festival this year with his film “The Third Bank,” a tale of young boy whose father decides to quit his job, leave his family and spend the rest of his days on a rowboat.
The festival includes a panel of celebrity judges, among them actor Tim Robbins, who will give the keynote address on the relationship between social justice and film. Last year, Oliver Stone addressed the event.
Edell will enter a film entitled “Bracia” (Polish for ‘brothers’) about two Polish brothers who escape from a concentration camp during the Holocaust. The film was made in Prague with the help of Matt Rosen of George Washington University and John Brookins of American University.
“I’m really excited about going to Brown this weekend.” Kendell said. “It actually is the first film festival that I have submitted [the film] to.”
Zax will be presenting “My Brush with Death,” which was produced with help from Luke Bauer of Harvard and Matt Volner from Cornell. Wachsman and Rothschild will be entering the contest with their film “So To Speak.”
Weinstein and Smith will present their film “One Room, Two Women” this weekend at Brown. Weinstein is excited about the future of the festival.
“The Ivy film festival has been steadily growing and I know that it is a big attraction to Ivy students and those who have graduated,” Weinstein said. “It has a lot of talent.”
The Ivy Film Festival was founded in 2001 by Brown University undergraduate David Peck. Today, one-third of the films in the event are produced by Yale students. The festival also includes a screenplay contest.