Three Santa Monica College Student Films to Screen at Local Festival

By Lookout Staff

December 6, 2018 -- Three films by Santa Monica College (SMC) students that explore lives disrupted by outside forces will be screened Saturday at the Santa Monica International Film Festival (SMFF).

The festival's 25 films by local, national, and international filmmakers will be shown between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center, 1332 2nd Street in downtown Santa Monica.

The SMC student films -- “Hinge”, “Once upon a Woman” and “Undocumented” -- tell the stories, respectively, of a lesbian couple, cowboys and Indians and a young undocumented immigrant.

In “Hinge,” directed by Lisa Mayo and produced by Lindsay Eberts, the couple's idyllic life is challenged by a mentally unstable neighbor. The disruptive forces in revisionist Western “Once Upon a Woman,” directed by Wayne Hodges and produced by Tyler Cook, the approach of the railroad after the Civil War. The short film has screened at Prague Independent Film Festival, Vienna Independent Film Festival, L.A. International Shorts and Silicon Beach Film Festival.

“Undocumented,” a six-minute documentary film directed by Bishal Dutta and produced by Lindsay Eberts, Oscar Huezo and Dennis Sandoval, portrays the struggles of a young man brought to the United States illegally as a child.

The film was been an official selection at the 38th International Festival of Film Schools in Munich and a semi-finalist at the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards. It won Best Audio Visual Film at the Los Angeles CineFest.

A Q &A with the filmmakers accompanies each block of screenings. An awards presentation and cocktail party open to those who purchase passes will cap the festivals at 8:30 p.m. at 1212 Santa Monica.

Award presenters include SMC Superintendent/President Dr. Kathryn E. Jeffery; Santa Monica Mayor Ted Winterer; Casey Contreras, Culture & Design editor for SMC’s student-run newspaper The Corsair, and SMC alumnus Alci Rengifo, now a Rotten Tomatoes film critic.

Santa Monica residents, SMC students and KCRW members can get complimentary screening passes for access to all 25 film screenings (does not include the awards party).

The three SMC films were shot on location by students in the school's Film Production Program headed by Salvador Carrasco.

Ticket information and access codes are available on the festival’s website, www.smff.org/tickets while supplies last.