Cinema Tahoe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Laura Constantino, (415) 573-9917, SFSUfilmfestival@gmail.com

SF State’s 48th annual Film Finals honors accomplished and neophyte filmmakers on May 16 Juried screening features top student films, opening remarks by Oscar-winning alum Steven Okazaki, and celebration of retiring professors Jim Kitses and Pat Ferrero

SAN FRANCISCO, March 26, 2008 — The Cinema Department at San Francisco State University (SF State) presents the 48th edition of Film Finals: a showcase of the best student short movies as selected by a committee of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. The event will take place in the McKenna Theater, located in the Creative Arts Building on the SF State campus at 1600 Holloway Ave., on May 16 from 7 to 10 p.m. A reception with complimentary food and wine will precede the event from 5.30 to 6.30 pm in room 153 in the Creative Arts Building.

“Film Finals is created and produced by the next wave of groundbreaking filmmakers,” said Professor Steve Ujlaki, chair of the Cinema Department. This year’s Film Finals will also feature opening remarks by Steven Okazaki, SF State alum and Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker, and will honor the remarkable careers of two SF State cinema professors: Pat Ferrero and Jim Kitses.

Okazaki will open the 48th Film Finals Award Ceremony. After graduating from the SF State Cinema Department in 1976, Okazaki started working in children’s programming for Churchill Film in Los Angeles. After the production of his first documentary Survivors, Okazaki’s career has been an escalation of success: nominated for an Academy Award in 1995 for Unfinished Business and in 2006 for The Mushroom Club, he actually won the Oscar for Best Short Documentary in 1991 with Days of Waiting, the story of artist Estelle Ishigo, one of the few Caucasians to be interned with the Japanese Americans during World War II. After producing various successful documentaries for PBS and a narrative feature, Steven started a ten-year collaboration for HBO, where he recently produced “White Light/Black Rain,” a powerful documentary about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. Okazaki’s work has explored different difficult subjects ranging from heroin addiction to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, focusing on the remarkable experiences of common people.

Besides teaching production classes at undergraduate and graduate levels, Ferrero is an independent filmmaker whose movies have been shown in various national and international festivals including Sundance, New York Film, and San Francisco and have been screened both on cable and PBS. She has also collaborated with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and produced a series of nine shorts on Native Americans culture and environmental issues for the museum permanent collection.

Kitses, a Harvard graduate, is one of the most authoritative voices in the field of Western genre studies in the country. His well known publications include seminal works such as: “Horizon West: Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood” and its sequel “Horizons West — Mann, Boetticher, Peckinpah: Studies of Authorship within the Western.”

As stated by Ujlaki, “The Cinema Department at SF State is continuing in a tradition of training some of the world’s top independent film makers and many Academy Award winners.” The SF State Cinema Department, in fact, has educated generations of successful filmmakers that include Academy Award Winners Steven Zaillan (Best Screenplay, “Schindler’s List,” 1994), Christopher Boyes (Best Sound, “Titanic,” 1998, “Pearl Harbor,” 2001, “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” 2004) and Okazaki (Best Short Documentary, “Days of Waiting,” 1991.)

Tickets will be available starting April 16 and can be purchased at the box office of the Creative Arts Building (Monday through Friday, 12-4 p.m. and 1 hour before all ticketed events), over the phone (415-338-2467), or online at Ticketweb.com. Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for students and seniors.

Imagine a young child, eye level with a floor full of miniature toys, concentrating intently on building a make-believe world. To the child, the toys are not miniature figures made of plastic or wood. They are real characters with  real adventures. The child frames the action, crafting scenes that unfold in a world of imagination.

Looking through the lens of a camera as actors bring to life a writer’s story, the filmmaker is also peering into a world of imagination. The director, producer, actors, screenwriter, and film editor are all essential players in the journey from concept to finished film. In this remarkable process, thousands of small details—and often hundreds of people—come together to create a Hollywood film.

Join us as we explore this creative process, from the screenwriter’s words to the editor’s final cut. Write your own dialogue for a scene or put yourself in a producer’s shoes by managing the production of a film.