UNIVERSITY PARK — To kick off a week filled with motion pictures and meaningful discussion, the Centre Film Festival partnered with Penn State’s Student Film Organization and Centre Film Festival Club to host the third annual Tailgate Screening event in Carnegie Cinema on Sunday, showcasing short films made by Penn State students.
Thirteen short films were screened, ranging in topics from a hunt for a missing slice of pizza
to high school students struggling during an eight-minute time span of a school shooting.
Artistic Director and Festival Co-Founder Pearl Gluck introduced the event and
addressed the student filmmakers in the audience — including Centre Film Festival Club President Sydney Stewart.
“We created this to show student films that were made here in Pennsylvania to a live audience because we all know a theatre is much better (to see films) live,” Stewart said.
The first film screened was titled “One Slice,” written and directed by Penn State first- year Jacob Wegwerth, who was inspired by a fight he had with a friend over the last slice of pizza.
“I said ‘let’s film this,’ and we did that very day,” Wegwerth said.
Penn State York student Darien Reimold took a more supernatural approach with his film “Emanating,” which came from a chapter of an anthology thriller book he’s writing.
In the short film, a man finds a strange blue light force that sends him into a trance where he wants to correct the wrongs of the world.
Some films, like Leah Bahamonde’s “Eaten Alive” and Charles Irvin’s “8 Minutes” were glimpses into pressing issues impacting young people today.
“Eaten Alive” follows a young woman battling an eating disorder and a spiral she experiences after food shopping, an experience Bahamonde lived through herself.
“Every day I’m thankful that I was able to live on and tell my story,” Bahamonde said. “That film is for everyone who’s ever had an eating disorder or struggled through mental health or thought they weren’t good enough.”
In “8 Minutes,” a small group of high schoolers are trapped in a classroom during a school shooting and have to decide whether to go fight the attacker or stay hidden. The film ended with statistics detailing the lasting impact school shootings have had on American children.
Stewart produced the film, and was moved to tell this story by two friends who lived in Connecticut where the Sandy Hook shooting took place.
“The further I got along in life, the more I saw that nothing was really happening for this,” Stewart said. “Nothing was getting fixed, it’s just another day. This is what students have to go through.”
Other narrative short films included “Sunburst,” which centers around a chronic hypochondriac’s spiral when he thinks he’s dying, “Lady,” a stop-motion animated film starring a tiny ballerina figure, “Collarbone,” focusing on a high school hockey player’s argument with her doctor over her physical limits, “The Henhouse State,” an absurd comedy where a man yearns to become a chicken and “The Last Chip,” where two
friends fight over the last chip in the bowl.
There were also four documentary short films, “Madame Major,” “Tomando las Reindas,” “Layers of Ordinary” and “A Night in the Car,” telling stories ranging from Penn State’s Beaver Stadium on a football gameday to the village of Jardines del Pedregal in Mexico.
Penn State alumna Gabrielle Singer directed “Tomando las Reindas” on a Mexico City study abroad trip she took last spring. The film follows Rosa María Morales Rizo as she trains her granddaughter Ana Victoria to be a Mexican Charra — or skilled horse rider.
“My inspiration behind my film was my mom and my grandmother,” Singer said. “My mom passed away nine years ago from breast cancer… I wanted to capture the relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter and Rosa was the perfect fit for it.”
At the end of the screenings, audience members could cast ballots to award the films that moved them the most.
The Centre Film Festival officially runs from Nov. 10-16 in Centre County.
