JEN ISO & AUDREY REED
Staff Writer & Editor in Chief
Pepperdine announced that along with the city of Malibu it will be the host of the Malibu Celebration of Film festival that will take place in October 2006.
The festival will feature films that have gained notoriety at other film festivals like Cannes and Sundance.
“Bringing award winners from the world’s festivals each year will give us all an opportunity to see more and more worthwhile filmmaking from around the world as well as more independent films from our U.S. filmmakers,” said the festival founder Bob Klein.
The 10-day long event will take place on-campus in Alumni Park and Smothers Theatre as well as off-campus.
“I really do think this is the biggest thing for Pepperdine,” said humanities professor Dr. Michael Gose, who is on the board of directors for the festival.
In addition to Gose, David Arquette, Courtney Cox Arquette, Ed Harris and Dick Van Dyke among other well-known names are on the organizing committee of the Malibu Celebration of Film.
Klein, also one of the festival directors and a Malibu resident, said he wanted to start a film festival in the area because of the high concentration of Academy members in the area.
“Pepperdine students will benefit the same way the community of Malibu will benefit, by having more of the world’s great festival-award-winning films available each year, many of which will be pre-release, some of which may never be released in this country,” he said in an e-mail interview.
Pepperdine will be waiving facilities costs for the festival, Gose said.
In addition to the festival, Pepperdine is putting a stronger emphasis on films in academia. The incoming freshman class will be able to take part in studying film through freshman seminar classes at the discretion of their professors.
“Every age has its great “genres” of literature — there has been the age of the epic and the age of the novel,” Provost Darryl Tippens said in an e-mail. “One could argue that this is the age of cinema. Yet many students have never been taught how to“read” film critically.”
Tippens authorized the automatic enrollment of freshman into the course.
Chair of the Humanities Division and Dr. Maire Mullins said she is enthusiastic about the incoming class.
“We’re in the perfect location,” Mullins said. “We need a voice in the Hollywood conversation.”
For Gose, location also plays a factor into why Pepperdine could be more involved with film.
“We are sitting in the middle of Malibu community. It’s such a natural thing,” Gose said.
Outside the film festival and the course, Gose said two majors, one in film studies and one in screen writing, could be on the “near horizon.”
“I hope that we can break down the false notion that film is only entertainment,” Tippens said. “Good art can and should be both entertaining and insightful. I’m hopeful these experiences will prove that enjoyment and learning are two sides to the same phenomenon.”
03-16-2006