Memoria<\/em> on April 2, 2022. Attendance was free, but attendees were asked to fill out ballots so the students could give audience awards. (Photo by Phyllis Graber Jensen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cEveryone just stepped up,\u201d says Cole De Magistris \u201924, a double major in economics and in rhetoric, film, and screen studies from Emerson, N.J. \u201cIf someone was running late for something, someone else filled in. Whatever was asked of us, we just did. And everyone was excited to do whatever because it\u2019s just a great experience.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you take a step back you can really feel the magnitude of this event,\u201d says Amanda Taylor \u201923, a psychology and RFSS double major from Fair Lawn, N.J. She had been waiting for a chance to take the course, not sure if it would be an option because of the pandemic, but jumped when she saw it on the schedule. \u201cI really subscribe to the idea of taking part in things unique to our school. I was looking forward to having this be a part of it, whether as a viewer or an organizer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The coursework was as rich as the festival itself, she says. \u201cOur classes were always so full and interesting that I felt like the festival snuck up on us.\u201d She particularly relished the democratic process by which they picked films. \u201cProfessor Cavallero is the genius behind it all. He guided us so well and in his planning \u2014 I never really felt a lot of pressure. It\u2019s pretty amazing how this all came together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
De Magistris\u2019 whirlwind week included staffing an opening reception in the Fireside Lounge at Commons on Tuesday (complete with branded popcorn and cider, courtesy of Dining Services, and a performance by the campus band Glass of Water). He handed out ballots to moviegoers (the students asked audience members to rate the films from 1 to 5, with an eye on giving awards), put up promotional posters, worked Instagram to generate publicity, and ran his own panel, on music in the movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Students listen to campus band Glass of Water at the Bates Film Festival opening reception in the Fireside Lounge in Commons. They sipped cider and munched on popcorn as the band performed. The opening night film, The Worst Person in the World<\/em>, screened at Olin Arts Center after the reception. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAlong the way he learned to love an old fashioned musical, 1944\u2019s Meet Me in St. Louis<\/em> \u2014 \u201cI think it\u2019s a really great movie\u201d \u2014 which screened Saturday as part of a celebration of Judy Garland, who would have turned 100 this year. He had brunch with John Turturro in Commons and all week answered a lot of audience questions, including the two most popular: \u201cIs this movie really free?\u201d (yes) and \u201ccan I buy one of those cool Bates Film Festival-branded sweatshirts?\u201d (no, you had to be in the course to get them). <\/p>\n\n\n\nJohn Turturro gives a demonstration of what acting in a big budget film against a green screen can be like, such as him acting opposite a pole that would later be transformed, thanks to magic of computer-generated imagery, into some sort of monster. That work is often a “sketch” he says, compared to the creative work that allows him to work more like a painter. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nDe Magistris\u2019 panel on music in the movies was inspired by how vital the soundtrack is in Romance & Cigarettes<\/em>, a 2005 film written and directed by Turturro that also screened at the festival. The panel covered topics like the iconic Star Wars<\/em> theme and included a lesson on scoring techniques from panelist \u200b\u200bVineet Shende, a Bowdoin music professor, and input from Clarissa Carter, a young creative executive at Disney who is also a singer-songwriter. \u201cIt didn\u2019t attract the numbers I wanted but the conversation we had far outweighed the numbers,\u201d De Magistris says. \u201cThat\u2019s where the meat of the festival is.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nHis experience was in line with what Cavallero had been telling his students throughout the semester, that what film festivals are really about are the things that happen between one movie and the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is about the conversations that the movies make possible,\u201d Cavallero says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nEarlier in March in Pettigrew Hall, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Jonathan Cavallero talks with students in the course “Film Festival Studies” as they choose the festival films. One group chose narrative films, the other documentaries. Together they hashed out a schedule and picked a logo design for the festival. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn the crunch weeks before the festival started, he reinforced that message in class, spelling out various popular perceptions of what film festivals are versus the realities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Popular perception<\/strong>: The films make the festival. Reality<\/strong>: True, but the festival can also help to make the film.<\/li>Popular perception<\/strong>: Festivals are there to entertain their audiences. Reality<\/strong>: For some festivals yes, but the BFF is also about challenging<\/em> them.<\/li>Popular perception<\/strong>: When a festival shows a film, they are endorsing its view. Reality<\/strong>: Festivals like ours program films to start conversation around complicated issues.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nCase in point, the BFF created and deployed around a dozen panels and artist talks to address topical issues related to the festival\u2019s selected films. For instance, the students had, as a whole, embraced a 2021 documentary called Try Harder!<\/em>, about the college admission process. So to widen the conversation, they asked Bates Admission leaders Darryl Uy and Audrey Burns \u201917 to lead a discussion about how Bates selects a class, and sought to lower the pressure that a student has to get into the “right” college. \u201cExceptional students are going to be exceptional wherever they go,\u201d said Burns.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCavallero encouraged students to seize opportunities and be open minded to possibilities as the third Bates Film Festival kicked off. The festival officially debuted in 2018 (prior to that Cavallero and students collaborated with a local festival called Emerge) and is now planned as an event that happens every two years. De Magistris felt Cavallero guiding his students into personal growth, giving them a chance to \u201cgain new confidence to ask questions and be like, more participatory and have tougher conversations.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Audrey Soss \u201824, a double major in RFSS and English from San Francisco, missing the shuttle back to Lewiston from Freeport on Friday led to one of those unique opportunities. A classmate offered her a ride, but said he was having dinner with Shea first, did she want to come? Soon they were all sitting down at Maine Beer Company, eating wood-oven fired pizza while Shea signed posters for his 2015 film The Grey Lady<\/em>, which he\u2019d just screened at the Nordica. <\/p>\n\n\n\nJohn Shea \u201970 fields a question during his Q&A in Schaeffer Theatre on the last day of the festival. He started his talk by bending down to kiss the stage. It’s where he made his acting debut as a Bates student more than 50 years ago. “Does anybody at Bates understand that this is like a Broadway house?” he asked the audience. “This would be like the Booth theater in New York. I mean, this is a fantastic<\/em> theater. So if you can work on this stage, guess what? You can work on any stage in the world.”On Saturday Soss and Benjamin E. Mays \u201920 Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Charles Nero participated in a panel on a topic she\u2019s explored in her coursework, reclaiming LGBT+ representations in film, discussing two of the festival\u2019s entries (Framing Agnes<\/em> and Sweetheart<\/em>) as well as \u201cinterrogating the tropes\u201d in movies like the popular 2018 release Love, Simon. <\/em>By Sunday afternoon, she was up on the stage in Schaeffer with a group of classmates, asking Turturro about what it was like to direct himself in Mac<\/em>, his film about an Italian-American family of builders. The semi-autobiographical film, which turns 30 this month, was featured on Saturday, and followed by a Q&A with Turturro. <\/p>\n\n\n\nShea was a committed participant at the BFF, present at many events. In addition to talking about The Grey Lady<\/em>, a thriller that speaks to his love of Nantucket, where he lives year round, he attended panel discussions, made a guest appearance at Assistant Professor of Theater Tim Dugan\u2019s directing course, and dispensed advice to those who might want a career like his: \u201cI would be studying, acting, and directing and writing and business and producing. I would get as many arrows in your quiver as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nBates Film Festival John Shea \u201970 talks with students during Sunday’s Q&A. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nOver brunch on the last day of the festival, students got a chance to sit with the festival\u2019s special guests in Commons. Rabih Chughtai \u201923, a double major in neuroscience and in RFSS from Farmington, Conn., had a \u201creally, really great conversation\u201d with Bruce W. Smith as well as the producers and director of Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street<\/em>, a 2020 documentary about the long-running children\u2019s program.<\/p>\n\n\n\nChughtai may be a STEM major on a medical school track, but since he finished high school, he\u2019s developed a serious side interest in writing screenplays. \u201cI\u2019m just movie obsessed at this point.\u201d He was the TA in Cavallero\u2019s film theory course last fall and helped him prep for the course and the festival starting last October. \u201cI would send emails to film distributors and potential guests,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s how we ended up getting to Turturro.\u201d Master gaffer Andy Day, a parent of a Bates grad, had worked on Romance & Cigarettes<\/em> with Turturro, who has a son at Bowdoin, and helped make the connection. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBruce W. Smith, groundbreaking creator of The Proud Family<\/em>, an animated sitcom centered on a Black family that ran on the Disney Channel from 2001-2005 and was recently rebooted as The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder<\/em>, speaking to an audience at Schaeffer Theatre. Among the challenges he navigates in his career is finding a balance between his quest for cultural authenticity and frequently, the desires of white Hollywood for what is “a contained, digestible, you know, a more palatable level of Blackness.” (Gianluca Yornet de Rosas for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nChughtai\u2019s duties at the festival included running a screening of Coming Home<\/em>, the Wayne Wang movie based on a personal essay by Pulitzer Prize\u2013nominated author Chang-Rae Lee P ’23. (Lee, whose books include The Surrendered<\/em> and A Gesture Life<\/em>, couldn\u2019t make it to Lewiston, but participated in a Zoom Q&A after the Coming Home<\/em> screening.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nAt the Sunday brunch Chughtai had a quick chat with Turturro, telling him how much he\u2019d appreciated the actor\u2019s work in projects like the 2016 HBO miniseries The Night Of,<\/em> as well as how warmly Chughtai\u2019s family, who had driven up from Connecticut, had felt about Mac<\/em>, with its story of immigrants making it in America. It particularly touched his father, who immigrated from Pakistan. \u201cMy dad loved it,\u201d Chughtai says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThen Chughtai headed to Schaeffer for the creator talks. After Turturro\u2019s presentation, Chughtai was standing with Cavallero, hoping to ask one more question of The Batman <\/em>star when Turturro asked if anyone could drive him back to Brunswick. \u201cYou wanna give him a ride?\u201d Cavallero asked his student. <\/p>\n\n\n\nActor John Turturro answers a question from a faculty and student panel at Schaeffer Theatre on the last day of the festival. Pictured in the blue sweater in the middle of the student group is Rabih Chughtai ’23, who ended up with a bonus gig as Turturro’s chauffeur back to Brunswick. Getting to talk one on one with the writer, director and well known actor about the creative process was “surreal” Chughtai said, in all the best ways. (Photo by Phyllis Graber Jensen)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe answer was a definitive yes. The movie star and the student set off across campus to pick up Chughtai\u2019s car at Chu, with a few delays for Bates “paparazzi.” \u201cHe got stopped for some pictures,” said Chughtai. Ashe drove, they talked film, writing process, and goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was Chughtai\u2019s car clean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He laughs. \u201cThat\u2019s the first question people ask me when I tell that story, \u2018How dirty was your car?\u2019 Thankfully, I kept it pretty clean.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The whole experience was, he said, super. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty surreal to think that that even happened, to be honest.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the winter semester now winding down \u2014 finals begin in less than two weeks \u2014 the students are processing ballots for the audience winners and doing the administrative followup that will set their peers who take the course in 2024 up for similar success. The group relied heavily on an advisory board<\/a> from previous years to guide them. And, of course, on their professor, worthy of multiple metaphors: \u201cHe was like, the glue. He was the rock for this festival,\u201d says De Magistris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cFrom the first day of class, Professor Cavallero was like, \u2018It may seem like a lot of work now, but you\u2019re going to be looking back on this day, once we\u2019re finished with the festival, you\u2019re going to be amazed by how much we did and how great of a product we were able to produce by working together.\u2019\u201d At the time, De Magistris shrugged. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK.\u2019 But I could truly say that that is the case now.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Delayed because of the pandemic, the 2022 Bates Film Festival festival featured special guests like actor, writer, directors John Turturro and John Shea \u201970.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1283,"featured_media":145528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-alumni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145509"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145614,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145509\/revisions\/145614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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