Magazine Spring 2024 Film Students Go Behind the Scenes

Two Westmont students gained exclusive access to Hollywood’s top actors, directors, writers and filmmakers through the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Rosebud program. Film studies minors GRACE REDFORD ’26 and WESLEY YOWELL ’25 joined about a dozen local college students who screened more than 30 films ahead of their theatrical release. The students watched with members of

the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and spoke with Oscar nominees afterward.

After seeing Best Picture Nominee “American Fiction,” Grace and Wesley were just two of three students who talked to writer/director Cord Jefferson and actor Jeffrey Wright at length.

“We got them to ourselves, and they were dropping pearls about their path to becoming an ac- tor and director,” Wesley says. “Cord, for instance, was a jour- nalist before becoming a tele- vision writer on “Succession” and “Watchmen” before writing ‘American Fiction,’ which led to his first directing gig. Jeffrey Wright was colorful, talked to us about racial politics, and was a personable and funny guy.”

“They are so nice, down-to- earth and talented — and interested in talking to college students,” Grace says. “They wanted to hear all about what we were doing. It was cool to learn about behind-the-scenes stories. They were humble about their processes and honest about their struggles.”

Director Todd Haynes and actors Julianne Moore and Charles Melton spoke to students at a reception following a screening of “May December.” “I talked to Todd Haynes about his past films and television projects, including the HBO miniseries ‘Mildred Pierce,’” Wesley says. “I was interested in his lens because he has a penchant for writing about women protagonists who are almost always unhinged. He laughed when I asked him about it, and he said he’d never thought about it that way. He advised me to write about what I know. It doesn't matter whether or not they look like me as long as they have an outlook like mine.”

An English major, Wesley says the experience makes a career as a screenwriter seem more feasible. “It's a lesson in persistence, which is an important lesson to everybody who’s young and aspiring to be in those roles,” he says.

Grace, who serves as a co-producer for the Montecito Student Film Festival (see sidebar), reported on the red carpet as a student writer for the Horizon. “That was a blast,” she says. “It felt like the quintessential Hollywood experience. I also attended the awards tributes, which was super fun.”

Grace majors in English and hopes to be a screenwriter, and she expands her knowledge by acting in the annual Westmont Fringe Festival. “Screenwriting has a cultural impact,” she says. “What stories we choose to tell shows what we value as a culture, and I think screenwriters have a big role in choosing how to portray people, places and things, which feeds into the culture.”

Montecito Student Film Festival

The second annual Montecito Student Film Festival, held at Westmont on March 23, received more than 500 films from student filmmakers in 65 countries. The judges presented six prizes, including Audience Award, Critics Choice Award, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best Screenplay and Best International Film. The festival producer, Westmont junior Tamia Sanders of Pearland, Texas, said this year's success resulted from “a team of people with a clear vision of what they’re doing and the ambition to get it done.” Jackson directed the festival and served as a catalyst for Westmont’s film studies minor. “Through social media and technology, people tell stories every day,” she says. “We’re now providing a platform for them to display what they’ve crafted.”