The top student films produced this year in the prestigious film programs at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts will be showcased at the Haig Manoogian Screening Series, to be held June 6 at the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood, from 6:30 p.m. till 9 p.m.
The top student films produced this year in the prestigious film programs at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts will be showcased at the Haig Manoogian Screening Series, to be held June 6 at the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood, from 6:30 p.m. till 9 p.m.
Currently in its 28th year, the Haig Manoogian Screening series was named in honor of the talented filmmaker and former NYU Faculty member Haig Manoogian, who for more than a decade was a beloved mentor to thousands of students in the Tisch film program. The screening will feature the top three films produced in the undergraduate, graduate and Tisch Asia graduate film programs, selected at the annual Wasserman/King Awards, which cap NYU’s own annual First Run Film Festival in March.
“The Haig Manoogian Screening Series provides our students with tremendous visibility at the center of the film industry,” said Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts. “It also provides a valuable opportunity for NYU Tisch to connect with our many thousands of alumni living on the west coast, to give them an opportunity to experience the exciting work coming out of the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television film program and our campus, Tisch Asia, in Singapore.”
The Wasserman awards are given annually to three undergraduate and three graduate film students at NYU’s Kanbar Institute, and receive special underwriting by a grant from the Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation. Previous years’ Wasserman winners whose films have been screened at the Haig Manoogian Screening Series include Christian Taylor (Lost, Six Feet Under), Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones, Mad Men), Jim Taylor (Sideways, Election), Dee Rees (Pariah), Seith Man (The Walking Dead, Friday Night Lights), and Andrew Okeah MacLean (On The Ice). Winning films being screened include the following:
Undergraduate Film
Erin Sanger, Bombshell
Synopsis: A ten year-old tomboy must weigh her loyalty to her trusted older brother as she becomes complicit in a hate crime to win his affection. (14:00 minutes)
Jacob Kafka, Based on a True Story
Synopsis: A little girl tries to dig to the moon, and has adventures along the way. (6:00 minutes)
Bruce Li, Caught
Synopsis: Jason Bourne and Blood Diamonds comes to Middle School. It’s 2001. Gunn, a student experienced in trading illegal contrabands, acts as a liaison between traders. Now he’s got to pull one last job to win the girl he loves, Felicia, who has an agenda of her own. (19:51 minutes)
Graduate Film – New York
Vladimir De Fontenay, Mobile Homes
Synopsis: Mobile Homes tells the story of a young woman, trapped in sex trafficking, and her son who explores and unlikely way out. (13:00 minutes)
Melanie Delloye, Anna and Jerome
Synopsis: Anna leads a troubled life in a small French town in Normandy. She hasn’t always been a good mother but she wants to change. She dreams of taking her young son far away and starting over somewhere else. (21:00 minutes)
Sarah-Rose Meredith, Plan B
Synopsis: Debbie and Jake race across the desert in search of emergency contraception, fighting their hangovers, the clock and each other. (19:30 minutes)
Graduate Film – Singapore
Jeffrey Wong, H’Mong Sisters
Synopsis: Teenage sisters living in a mountain village in Vietnam take a Western backpacker under their wing. As they guide him through a traditional way of life that has been threatened by economic and colonial forces, their informal relationship exposes underlying complexities. Romanticized notions of cross-cultural understanding are undermined by the modern realities facing these vulnerable tribes. (13:27 minutes)
Erica Liu, Springtime
Synopsis: Springtime tells the story of Xiao Zhu, an 86-year-old pork sung maker who is really too old to be chasing dreams. One day, she quits her job in rural Chia Yi, Taiwan and decides to head off to the big city to find her ‘springtime.’ (13:26 minutes)
Mauricio Osaki, My Father’s Truck
Synopsis: Part coming-of-age, part road film, My Father’s Truck revolves around 10-year-old Mai Vy as she skips school one day to help her father with his passenger truck for hire. Set along the countryside of Northern Vietnam, Mai Vy is soon confronted with shades of morality and some harsh realities as she learns how things, outside the classroom, really are.
The Director’s Guild of America is located at 7920 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, California. To purchase tickets to the Haig Manoogian Screenings, visit http://nyuinla2013.eventbrite.com or call 212-998-1795.
The Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at the Tisch School of the Arts provides an intensive and professional education in filmmaking. Approximately 150 graduate and 1,050 undergraduate film students pursue degrees in film and television production, photography, cinema studies, dramatic writing, and interactive telecommunications. Distinguished alumni of the Kanbar Institute include Joel Coen, Chris Columbus, Billy Crystal, Martha Coolidge, Ernest Dickerson, Amy Heckerling, Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, Spike Lee, Todd Phillips, Brett Ratner, Nancy Savoca, Martin Scorsese, Susan Seidelman, Morgan Spurlock, and Oliver Stone, among many others.
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