Miguel Angel Tamayo, a University of Miami rising senior, has always been in love with film. For many years, he watched a film a day. When he saw Carlos Saura’s "Cria Cuervos," the 1976 Spanish drama of loss and loneliness, he was smitten.
It inspired him to create his own short film called “Raising Ants,” a 19-minute drama of a young girl who loses her mother to cancer and is sent, along with her sister, to live with an estranged aunt.
“You don’t have to be a little girl to relate to this film,” he said. “Anyone who has felt lonely can connect with this story.”
Tamayo’s haunting film of “loss, guilt, and abandonment” is one of six to be featured in the University of Miami 2019 ’Canes Film Showcase on Wednesday, May 22 at 8 p.m. at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.
The annual showcase, co-hosted by the School of Communication and the UM Alumni Association, is a popular networking event for film and television alumni on the West Coast, giving them the chance to know what student filmmakers are creating on campus.
For the students, it is a chance to show off their talent, network, and tour studios—an “industry boot camp,” said Christina Lane, chair and associate professor in the Department of Cinema and Interactive Media.
This year the showcase will screen six short films and one feature script from undergraduate and graduate film students. These were chosen from 90 films that were entered for the competition, said Trae DeLellis, manager of programs at the School of Communication.
"In this year's films, we see how our students are both captivated by cinematic tradition and deeply engaged with the world around them,” Lane said. “It's exciting to see them confronting urgent social and global issues in such informed, and sophisticated ways."
The judges, who work in the entertainment industry, included alumnus David Nutter, director and producer for “Game of Thrones,” alumnus Kyle Patrick Alvarez, director of “13 Reasons Why,” and Academy Award winner Phil Lord.
Ali Habashi, a filmmaker and lecturer at the School of Communication, said of the student filmmakers: “Looking back, it has been fascinating and humbling to witness how every new generation of our student filmmakers, in undergraduate level, is getting more skilled and capable of telling highly nuanced stories.”
Habashi worked closely with Tamayo and said the student has a unique sensibility that translates into his cinematography.
“In my view, he is a magician with the camera as simply, his unique choices of framing, angles, and movement come from a deep instinct, responding while empathizing in real-time to the energy and the performance of the actors on the set. One cannot teach that,” Habashi said.
The films going to the showcase include narrative, documentary, and animation genres.
The films and the student filmmakers include:
RAISING ANTS
Miguel Angel Tamayo, writer-director, producer
Fernanda Lamuno, producer
Alejandro Adler, producer, production designer
APT 17
Diego Vicentini, writer-director, producer, editor
Valeria Viera, producer
Gregorio Acuña, director of photography
Freddy Sheinfeld, score
Matias Beyer, sound design
IT'S HELTER SKELTER, CHARLIE MANSON!
Alec Castillo, co-creator, animator
Kevin Fernandez, co-creator
Patrick McCarthy, score
Benjamin Edelman, sound design
BUFFALO GIRLS
Aaron Gordon, writer-director, producer
Sunny Bhatia, co-director
April Dobbins, producer
Yaxu Hu, editor
Jose Veliz, score
Kawame Davis, sound design
Issac Mead-Long, director of photography
VIRAGO
Kerli Kirch Schneider, writer-director
HAMPA
Jesus Grisanti, director, producer, director of photography, editor
THEY
Sarah Hartman Naar and Scott Naar - co-writers
