PBS SoCal’s FINE CUT Festival of Films celebrated 31 finalists at an award ceremony this past Tuesday, held at the Eagle Theatre at the iconic “Vidiots” video store in Los Angeles.
Three of the finalists participating in the festival were Cal State Fullerton alumni: Darian Hernandez, Helen Benavidez and Amanda D’Ambrosio. The three were chosen out of 414 submissions, coming from over 53 schools in California by a panel of nine judges.
The festival’s 27th season premiered Thursday on PBS Socal’s website and the student films will be released every week on Thursday until the end of October.
D’Ambrosio’s comedy short film, “Natural Selection” will air on Thursday, Oct. 29, in the episode “All is Lost.” Her film tells the story of a young woman looking for love, narrated as a nature documentary. “Natural Selection” has racked up over a dozen features in film festivals across Southern California.
“I love to make people laugh through my art and always try to find the light in serious situations. I find that laughter is a method of healing pain and adversity,” D’Ambrosio wrote on her website.
Benavidez’s short animation “Dog Brain” aired on Thursday, Sept. 24th. Featuring a pet dog determined to get his college degree in order to go to work with his human, this film draws inspiration from a viral online video.
“It got me thinking about like, OK, what would a dog do, put itself through in order to go out that door with their owner and stay by them all day,” Benavidez said.
She was also inspired by her own experience, earning a degree in entertainment art/animation from CSUF.
“At the time, I was also in my last year of college,” Benavidez said. “I was kind of reflecting on what even getting my education meant to me.”
She had originally entered “Dog Brain” into the Watsonville Film Festival, in her hometown of Watsonville, California.
“I wasn’t even thinking about submitting it, but I had gotten into my hometown festival, and that experience was so amazing that I kind of got the bug and so I decided to submit it,” Benavidez said.
Hernandez also has a short animation airing on the same day, titled “Unikid.” It details the story of a young goat who must save all he knows from an encroaching threat by uniting two feuding herds of animals that can’t seem to get along.
“I feel like that’s how the world really is today. I feel like we’re all very argumentative over little things that don’t really matter,” Hernandez said. “We should be focusing on the bigger issues that are harming all of us.”
Hernandez tried multiple times to get “Unikid” into a film festival lineup, and was ready to give up until Assistant Professor of Entertainment Art/Animation Kathy Baur encouraged him to submit the film to the FINE CUT Film Festival.
“Kathy really gave me that push like, ‘Hey, there’s one more film festival I really want you to submit to. You should because we have to represent Cal State Fullerton,’” Hernandez said. “And so I did, and sure enough, became a finalist and it’s great.”
Benavidez and Hernandez both attended the festival’s award ceremony, where they were recognized for their films.
“Dog Brain was lucky enough to be a producer’s pick, so I got to see it screened at that theater,” Benavidez said.
Hernandez noticed the positive energy beaming throughout the venue.
“We were so excited, lots of shouting and yelling, but in a good way,” Hernandez said. “There was no jealousy, there was no bad vibes, we were all there supporting each other.”
Coming off this grand recognition of their work, both artists have high hopes for the future.
Benavidez aspires to create another short film. She made “Dog Brain” in collaboration with Studio 105, an independent animation studio founded by CSUF alumni like herself and in the future stated she would love to work with them again.
Hernandez shares the same dream of creating more films.
“I really hope that being a finalist at FINE CUT brings me more opportunities to keep creating films and to keep going into that process of creating films,” Hernandez said. “That’s what really makes me happy.”
For each finalist, the FINE CUT Film Festival wasn’t just an opportunity to showcase their work, but a chance to see how their talent translates from their studies into a career in art.