Student filmmaking, it’s fair to say, has its share of stigmas. Some of them have probably been earned, but the modest (at best) production values of amateur movie-making needn’t preclude invention, ingenuity and commitment. As long as these three factors are in ample supply there is no reason why student films can’t conceivably shame their professional counterparts.
Nor is such an achievement unprecedented. It might be hard to believe this if you’ve ever witnessed firsthand the joyful chaos that tends to descend on budding amateur film-sets, but some of the most widely-acclaimed pictures of the last thirty years had their origins on humble campuses. Eraserhead, a deeply haunting and technically accomplished cult favourite, was made intermittently by David Lynch and a group of like-minded individuals from 1971 to 1976 while the future auteur was enrolled on a Masters course in Fine Arts. Shot on sets assembled cheaply from plywood and with a cast of family, friends, and (legend has it) one unborn calf foetus, the enduring respect that it commands from film buffs and serious critics alike is testament to what the enthusiasm of student filmmakers can achieve.
Less fêted, perhaps, but no less impressive in terms of ambition, was the first feature-length production of the Oxford University Film Foundation, Privileged, in the early eighties. Following the sexual escapades and drunken misadventures of a group of student partygoers, it not only proved that determined students could make a little go a long way, but launched the careers of some of modern cinema’s biggest names after it was bought for theatrical release. Director, then-student Michael Hoffman went on to lead major studio pictures, including this month’s The Last Station, (reviewed in Film) while it was the world’s first exposure to Hugh Grant who has since become a household name for being impossibly British in numerous wildly profitable romantic comedies.
Given the kudos that Privileged brought to student filmmaking, it is perhaps surprising that although our university has produced myriad stars of stage and screen, novelists, playwrights and politicians, the percentage of alumni that successfully forge a career behind the camera is small. There are impressive exceptions of course: Ken Loach, an undergraduate in Law, went on to make his name synonymous with social realist cinema in such bleak yet compassionate masterpieces as Kes, regularly cited by critics as one of the greatest British films ever made. Former English undergraduate Michael Winterbottom, meanwhile, is known as one of modern cinema’s most versatile and innovative directors, having brought unsimulated sex to mainstream films in 9 Songs and experimenting with form in A Cock and Bull Story, a meta-comedy about the making of an adaptation of The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy. Even Michael Winner, now better known in pop culture for his long-running appearances in excruciating advertisements, was once the director behind exploitation movies like the Death Wish series. But for the most part Oxford has appeared short on filmmaking talent.
This is quite possibly a result of the relative lack of any available communities of filmmakers in the university, in comparison to the wealth of dramatic and musical productions frequently put into motion. If filmmaking received the representation that its fellow art-forms enjoy in Oxford life, it is more than likely that a greater number of students would direct their creative energies into distinguishing themselves via moving pictures.
This is certainly the belief of Misha Kaletsky, current president of the Oxford University Film Foundation, and his fellow committee members. After a brief period of inactivity, the foundation was revived in Michaelmas of 2009 by Kaletsky, who is keen to see the foundation’s presence grow within the university.
He wants it to not only provide resources and networking opportunities for budding filmmakers in Oxford, but also lectures by heavyweight figures who can share their years of experience in an often impenetrable industry with those who are still wet behind the ears.
The centrepiece of the foundation’s calendar in Hilary term, however, is the first annual Oxford University Film Festival. The main event is film cuppers, when shorts by Oxford students will be judged by a panel of industry professionals, and the top eight will receive a special screening at the Phoenix Picturehouse, before an overall winner is announced at an awards ceremony. However, the festival also promises to offer something for those who want to take a less hands-on approach to film, including talks by illustrious names like actress Natasha McElhone of The Truman Show, and Margy Kinmonth, whose series Naked Hollywood won the BAFTA for Best Documentary.
But aside from this imminent celebration of student movie-making, the OUFF also have plans to emulate its founders and produce another large-scale film. ‘We will be starting next term on a project of our own, based on the winner of our screenwriting competition, which closes at the end of term’, Kaletsky has said. ‘This should be finished before the end of the year, when we’ll once again focus on making the film festival even bigger and better.’ As far as we know, Hugh Grant has no plans to reprise his role as supporting actor.
With interest and activity in student movies once more on the rise, then, it may not be long before Oxford has a filmmaking community to rival its theatrical counterpart. And if some of the most ambitious and brilliant minds in the country decide to realise their artistic visions through a camera lens, it’s always possible that more talents to equal such luminaries as Michael Winterbottom and Ken Loach might emerge from amongst them.
