By Andrew Cox

Of the more than 1,000 independent films submitted to the San Diego Film Festival this year, only 100 were accepted –– 10 by San Diego-area filmmakers, three of which were made by PLNU students.

“Fraternity,” “The Fourth Door” and “Wintercollar” were each selected for different short-film categories of the festival, which starts Wednesday, Oct. 4 and continues through Sunday, Oct. 8 in the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego.

Adam Miller, who graduated last spring with a media communications degree, wrote and directed “Fraternity” for a short film class his senior year. Fellow graduates Trevor Forssell, Heather Adams, Tyler Humphrey and junior Bailey Hedman also worked on the film, which stars 2006 graduate Guy Marino as a dying man trying to make peace with his estranged brother.

Miller will take time off from his job as a pre-production producer for NBC to attend the festival. While he isn’t expecting his film to win any awards, Miller says he is just happy to have made the cut.

“I’ve never actually attended a film festival before, so I’m interested to see the other films and just enjoy the experience of it all,” said Miller. “I think it will be pretty cool to see our film on the big screen, with people who paid to see it. That’s pretty funny.”

Hendricks Hall third south is making a date night out of the Friday screening of sophomore Blake Nelson’s film, “The Fourth Door.” The plan is to arrive slightly overdressed for the night in a modified ‘74 Dodge 1-ton van-turned-bus, affectionately dubbed “Eleanor” by owner Jared Callahan, (06). However, the bus broke down during a third floor Young Hall camping trip and may not be running in time for the weekend. Regardless of how he gets there, Nelson says he expects to enjoy the event.

“Since I’m not looking to win anything, and not looking to schmooze or make any connections right now, I can go and just watch my movie and see if anyone likes it,” said Nelson.

He says he’d be happy to hear audiences leave the screening with comments like, “Wow, that was fun,” or at least, “Wow, that was a completely unnecessary amount of ninjas and blood for one shot.”

“I’m hoping I’ll be book-ended by some five year-olds with a Canon so my film will look really good,” Nelson added.

Both “Fraternity” and “The Fourth Door” received honorable mentions in the BestFest America Film Festival in July. “Wintercollar,” by senior Brad Kester and graduate Joel West (06) tied for first place comedy in the college category. Kester said he doesn’t want to downplay the film’s achievement at BestFest, but he’s particularly interested to see how it does in a larger event with a wider audience.

“I’m pretty excited about seeming like a big deal,” he said. “I’m looking forward to having it screened in front of mostly people who don’t know who I am at all –– people with a more critical eye.”

Also involved with the festival is Bekah Macias, who graduated in 2006 with a degree in media communications. Macias volunteered with the festival during her sophomore year and interned her senior year as the assistant programming director and film traffic coordinator. This year she is festival producer, working directly with Executive Director Robin Laatz to plan the festival and make sure everything runs smoothly during the five-day event.

Laatz, who co-founded the festival in 2001 with her husband, filmmaker Karl Kozak, has taken notice of all the PLNU involvement.

“We’ve been working with Point Loma for, I think it’s almost been five years now, and we’ve had some really quality film projects,” said Laatz. “Students over there are just awesome. They’re really putting out great work, and we’re really thrilled to include them.”

Visit www.sdff.org throughout the weekend for tickets, volunteer opportunities and schedule information. Enter promo code: sdffstud for a two-for-one student rate.

Andrew Cox is a staff writer with The Point Weekly.