Movie Maker SR native competes at Cannes festival
The Cannes Film Festival is usually limited to glamorous stars and industry bosses, but Slippery Rock native Kevin Kauffman got to break into the business at this year's event.
Kauffman, a student at Point Park University, was in Cannes, France, May 11 through 25 as part of the Real Ideas Studio Cannes Student Filmmaking Program. The program gives students real world experience in the movie industry as teams produce a three- to five-minute documentary about some aspect of Cannes.
This year's program accepted 45 students from around the world. They were randomly split into groups of five and assigned a position such as director, editor or publicist.
"By bringing students and professionals together at Cannes, participants learned a great deal about film, and importantly, about themselves and the larger world around them," program director Jim Kenney said in a press release.
Kauffman had not met his teammates before, but he said production went smoothly despite radically diverse backgrounds and ideas.
"Working with these people was a fantastic experience," said Kauffman, who served as editor. "Imade a lot of friends and really good contacts that will be extremely important when I'm out there in the working world."
All students received training and advice from filmmaking experts and graduates of the program and were then set loose to gather material.
After exploring the city, Kauffman's group met a tattoo artist, Fred, who despises the chaos the festival brings to town, and his friend, Sophie, an aspiring actress desperate to be part of it.
The student filmmakers wanted their documentary to show how the festival affects locals. Kauffman said the gregarious tattoo artist was a natural choice for the film."He was really cool and spoke English," he said. "He was loud, outrageous, crazy. He was perfect."When the films were completed, there was a screening in a nearby theater. Kauffman's group placed among the top four and their project was named as a distinguished documentary.Kauffman said the students worked hard, but also had free time to experience the festival.They attended a number of premieres, including new films by directors Woody Allen and Charlie Kaufman.Kauffman said he was surprised at the number of films being screened in Cannes."You only hear about 10 or 15 movies when you're in the States, but there are literally thousands of movies playing in Cannes," he said. "There are so many good ones that it's overwhelming."Kauffman said the experience was amazing and he felt at ease after the initial culture shock wore off."Cannes is very accessible for anybody from anywhere because of the festival," he said. "There are so many people from other countries who are there that you don't really feel like an outsider."Kauffman said he felt like he would miss Cannes, but looked forward to coming home and applying what he learned to his cinema and digital arts major.The course of study focuses primarily on digital media, he said, and eliminates the expense of film and processing."It's a pretty comprehensive program. We study everything from the history of film to the technical stuff," he said.His education helped prepare him for the competition in Cannes, he said."I felt that a lot of schools there were much larger than Point Park," he said. "But Ifelt that I was right on par with everybody, talentwise, and with my knowledge of film and the process of making a movie."Kauffman said he is considering a move to Los Angeles after graduation next spring."But right now, I'm going to focus on school and making as many projects as I can before I graduate," he said.He will spend the summer working on several short films and commercials before returning to school in the fall.
