Aloha Students, Faculty and Friends of the Academy for Creative Media. Lots of kudos for ACM students, a chance to meet leading filmmakers, festivals seeking your films – and there's still money out there to make your film!

DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA REP TO CONDUCT ACM MASTER CLASS

Randal Kleiser, director of GREASE (the most successful movie musical ever), BLUE LAGOON, FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR, and TV movies such as THE BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE, will personally conduct an ACM Master Class for all ACM students April 17. Details will be announced shortly. Kleiser leads the Directors Guild of America's program to link film school students with Hollywood directors via teleconference for in-depth discussions of films and filmmaking.   ACM will be the newest participant.

CHEERLEADER DOC DIRECTOR & FREE SCREENING

Kimberly Bassford brings her award-winning documentary CHEERLEADER to a free screening and discussion March 30 at 7 pm in the Yukiyoshi Room (Krauss 012). Pacific New Media invites all ACM students to this exciting event. CHEERLEADER follows a squad of California cheerleaders on its quest for the national cheerleading championship.  Festival screenings have included Kodak's Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Kimberly Bassford is developing a documentary on the late Rep. Patsy Mink, and is looking for student interns. Here's your chance to connect!

WIN $1,000 TO PRODUCE YOUR FILM!

ACM's screenwriting competition will award three $1,000 scholarship/grants to students to produce their winning screenplays.

Here's how it works: Submit your original screenplay written in 2005-2006 to the ACM reviewing committee by Monday, April 17, 2006 (limit: 2 screenplays per student). Also include a preliminary budget showing anticipated production costs that the scholarship/grant would cover. Submit all materials to the ACM office, Crawford 210 by 4 pm.

If it's selected as one of the top three, you'll be awarded $1,000 to produce it for the screen (turn it into a film or video game) during the 2006-2007 academic year.

Who's eligible: Students enrolled in ACM courses; You must be a continuing student – you'll be enrolling full-time for Fall 2007; You must have an overall grade point average of 2.75.

NOTE: Winning students must agree to provide the Academy for Creative Media a production journal outlining pre-production, shooting and post production schedules, as well as any rough, director's and/or final cuts of the production, which shall be copyrighted as an ACM Production.

For more information, contact Asst. Prof. Joel Moffett at 956-3353, or <moffett@hawaii.edu>

MORE WINNING FILMS

Kevin Inouye's short film WAKE, which premiered at the ACM screenings at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival, has been accepted at the Visual Com LA Asian Pacific American Film and Video Festival. Kevin's film THE TAKE OF HAIKU JONES played at the LA (and San Francisco) festival last year. A second round of applause to Kevin – he's taken a position at the Hawai‘i State Film Office.

Also screening at LA festival – Jay Hubert's TUNNELS, which was also a 2005 HIFF standout. And a standing ovation to Jay, whose M.A. Thesis film - on the effects of tourism on a remote Western China village - was completed and accepted.

ENTER YOUR FILM …

March 24 is the absolute last entry deadline for the Silverdocs festival, June 13-18 in Los Angeles. This festival is sponsored by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel. Look up the info QUICKLY at <www.silverdocs.com>.

The 22nd International Short Film Festival Berlin is seeking entries. The festival in Nov. 7-12. Deadline for entries is July 14. Info at <www.interfilm.de>

If Italy is more to your taste, the 11th Milano Film Festival also has a short film competition. The festival is in September. Entry deadline is May 31. Info at <www.milanofilmfestival.it>

Closer to home is the Seattle Music and Arts Festival's Reel Film Festival. Festival is in September, entries due by May 1. Info at <www.seattlefilm.org>

Not a festival, but an opportunity to win a full-length feature film production deal. How? Submit your completed short film, along with a screenplay for a movie you wish to direct to the Chrysler Film Project. Deadline? April 20. Information? <www.chrysler.com/film>

And if that isn't big time enough for you, the Cannes Film Festival Residence program selects six young filmmakers for each of two four-and-a-half month training programs to work on a feature film. Submit completed short films for judging by March 31. Program runs from October – February, on the lovely French Riviera.   Info at <www.festival-cannes.org>.

As always, before entering a film, see the instructor for the production course in which it was made to obtain ACM clearance for entry.

SPEAKING OF FESTIVALS . . . SPEND SPRING BREAK WITH HIFF!

The Hawai'i International Film Festival's Spring Showcase runs March 31-April 6. A great lineup of films, including TSOTSI, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film,   THE PROPOSITION, an Australian western that created big buzz at the Berlin Film Festival, and FRIENDS WITH MONEY, a U.S. hit at Sundance. Full schedule and ticket info at <www.hiff.org>. No better way to spend Spring Break!!   HIFF is also looking for interns or volunteers for its programming department. Duties include assisting the Film Coordinator, creating film and production company databases, transcribe celebrity interviews …. Hours are flexible and you get to watch a lot of films! If you're interested, email Asst. Prof. Anne Misawa <amisawa@hawaii.edu>.

If you're interested in Hawai'i Community College's Japan Animation Study Tour this summer – May 14-29 – in Tokyo and Osaka, the signup deadline of March 25 is fast approaching. You can earn three credits in Art 269c, too. For more information call Violet Murakami at: 974-7533 or email <violet@hawaii.edu>.

MORE SCREENINGS FOR SPRING BREAK

1. At the Honolulu Academy of Arts Doris Duke Theatre - WHY WE FIGHT - An award-winning documentary on the US Military Industrial Complex. Directed by Eugene Jarecki, this film took the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Saturday through next Wednesday (3/29)   at 7:30 pm. Additional screenings at 1 pm on Friday, next Tuesday and Wednesday, and at 4 pm on Friday and Saturday.

2. On campus at Sinclair Auditorium Thursday at 7 pm and Sunday at 5 pm – RAM DASS: FIERCE GRACE, directed by Mickey Lemle.   Ram Dass remains best known for his bestseller “Be Here Now,” a book that sparked a generation's quest for meaningful spirituality. This film weaves vivid archival footage with intimate glimpses of Ram Dass today, using an unexpected, uninvited challenge   (his 1997 stroke) as a tool for spiritual transformation, and using what he learns to help others face issues of aging, death and dying.  

IN THE LIBRARY

Check out a Randal Kleiser film and ask him on April 17 how he did it! GREASE (Videotape 12497), IT'S MY PARTY (DVD 2317), or BLUE LAGOON (Videotape 11822) – all in the Wong A/V Center in Sinclair Library.

FACULTY KUDOS

Prof. Wimal Dissanayake has a chapter entitled, 'Globalization and the Experience of Culture: The Resilience of Nationhood' in a newly published book by the State University of New York

Press on globalization and cultural identity. Prof. Rob Wilson of University of California, Santa Cruz has described this book as a very significant work, which is at the forefront of cultural studies.