The first Ivy Awards go to Harvard's most deserving auteurs

By Susan Peterson

Gazette Staff

Their weapons at the ready, the two students up on the big screen duel it out -- floor lamp versus car tailpipe -- over street, fence, and rooftop.

Then, the lights go up and a tuxedoed young man steps to the podium and accepts the award for the "Best use of housewares in a film."

Huh?

The tongue-in-cheek prize was one of several bestowed during the first Ivy Film Festival, held Dec. 15 in Agassiz Theatre, and showcasing outstanding movies produced recently by Harvard College students.

The black-tie event drew dozens of student filmmakers and their friends, many of them decked out in velvet and the latest metallic sheaths. One donned a kilt, and another wore sneakers with his tux.

The festival was originally designed to give students a chance to see each other's work and to showcase film production at Harvard. From there, the idea to give out awards just grew.

"I see this as our own version of the Academy Awards," said Mandel Ilagan '99, co-emcee of the festival with Murad Hussain '99. "We hope to make this an annual event."

The films screened were chosen by the executive board of Harvard-Radcliffe Television (HRTV), and awards were presented to the producers of the five films.

"If we saw one that was really powerful, we showed it," said Kathleen Kouril '82, HRTV adviser and a nonresident tutor in film and video at Pforzheimer House, adding that the awards will be open to entrants from other Ivy League institutions next year.

This year's winning films ran about 15 minutes each and ranged from action and adventure, to documentary, to "clay-mation." The award winners were split between HRTV members and concentrators in Visual and Environmental Studies (VES).

Although the filmmaking was serious, the categories were not. They included "Best use of a surveillance camera in a film" and "Best use of facial hair in a film."

The trophy? A potted ivy plant.

Among the award winners was Route 1, which received the Ivy for "Best use of a restaurant." Andrew Sachs '97, of Adams House and a VES concentrator who worked on the film for a class project, accepted the award on behalf of several students who helped film life and events along that famous highway -- primarily in roadside eateries.

Sachs and his crew find humor in the everyday as they peer through the camera lens. The journey takes the viewer from the gas pump to the lunch booth, to children doing the chicken dance, to a budding karaoke star at a bar. And, finally, to a restaurant kitchen.

The prize for "Best use of a surveillance camera in a film" went to Class Subject. The film features a student who verges on madness when he discovers he has been spied on and followed as part of a research project. A tall, dark, and debonair Alexander Gildengers '97, a Mather House resident and an applied mathematics concentrator (no pocket protectors here), accepted the award.

"Wow -- I'm touched," Gildengers quipped. "This comes as a complete surprise. I'd like to thank the academy, my family, my high school math teacher. . . . This award belongs as much to the cameras as it does to me."

In another film, it is a scene worthy (almost) of James Bond, when a law enforcement officer takes on villains in a knock-down, drive-through chase -- and gets the girl. And when the winner was announced, the movie Hot Cop, written and directed by Harvard's Jared Bush (Jan. '97) president of HRTV and his brother, Joel, captured the Ivy Award for "Best use of facial hair in a film."

Randy Bell '00, a VES concentrator from Hurlbut Hall won the "Best use of clay in a film" award (since that scene in Ghost) for his movie, Have You Had Your Break Today? Bell's version of a McDonald's commercial uses stop-action techniques to capture different poses of amusing clay figures.

The lamp-tailpipe duel movie Aluminum Samurai was written and directed by Jeff MacGuyver Balis '97, a VES/film concentrator from Leverett House.

"This is the greatest award a young filmmaker could get, and one of my proudest moments at Harvard," Balis said on receiving his potted Ivy. "Almost makes me wish I didn't have to go home to write a paper."