Movie Fest a red carpet affair

UCF students were given their fifteen minutes on the red carpet Monday at the Campus Movie Fest Finale.

More than one hundred teams from across the university participated in the competition, where students were given one week to complete a five-minute film. The top sixteen films were shown in the Pegasus Ballroom.

CMF began at UCF four years ago and has now become the largest student film festival in the world. More and more college campuses participate every year.

"We currently go to over 75 schools across the U.S. and Mexico," said CMF Promotions Manager Kevin Moogan. "In Florida, we are going to Jacksonville University, Rollins College, UCF, University of Tampa and USF. There is also no limit to the number of participants. We are able to equip everyone who signs up with a Panasonic HD camera and an Apple laptop to film their movie."

The judges were a select panel group of students, staff and faculty from UCF.

Winners will be going on to the International Grand Finale in Hollywood, Calif. The Finale is a gala weekend that features opportunities with industry luminaries, a chance to see top student movies on studio lots and an awards ceremony.

The films were loaded with creativity, and ranging from dramatic to comedic. Both of these genres made it to the semifinals in two films called Fun Machine and I or Me.

I or Me is a twisting drama about the choice of who deserves the right to live — a crude, dying man or his clone who never got the chance to have a life of his own. The movie won Best Drama.

Fun Machine, the comedy that won Best Picture, was about a man who is suddenly transported into virtual reality where he must struggle against his own incompetence in order to escape.

Matt Grass, a senior psychology major, worked with Luke Berg, a senior cinema major, in their film, Jimmy's Passion, to win Best Comedy.

"Jimmy's Passion is a mockumentary about a 23-year-old boy, essentially. He's extremely naive and loves playing guitar. Unfortunately, he's not very good," Berg said.

Ill Mafioso won the award for Most Popular, and Best Actor/Actress went to Anthony Consolo for his performance in I or Me.

"It's amazing how you can give someone a camera and some editing software and get completely different films," said Grass. "I enjoyed most of the films. Some were off-the-wall, which I'm all about. Others were amazing, like I or Me."

"The other films were well written," said Berg. "CMF is a great opportunity, allowing young writers, actors and directors the chance to show off their talents to their peers, something we may not otherwise get the chance to do."

The winners were given prizes that included tickets to Universal Studios, an iPod Nano and an iPod Touch. Prizes were not only awarded to the film makers, the audience participated in a raffle which included similar prizes.

The other movies included: Smörgåsbored, Stranger, Number Seven, Pet Semiterry, Doll House, Idem, I Got a Story to Tell, Our Nights, I Fell for You, Hedda, To Have and to (blank), Eyes, Gold Man and Ill Mafioso. You can catch these films by searching for UCF on www.campusmoviefest.com.