Red carpet to be rolled out for student filmmakers

What do a bread knife, a house on wheels, two corpses, and the apocalypse have in common?

They are all the subjects of films, written and directed by four Clark seniors, that will be screened April 30 in Razzo Hall beginning at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Gyani Pradhan Wong Ah Sui ’24, who is majoring in screen studies with a minor in studio art, felt inspired to create a semi-autobiographical film, Moving Room, which contemplates their experience of moving to the U.S. from Sikkim, India, at the age of 15. Part of their goal was to send a message to their younger self. Pradhan Wong Ah Sui describes the film as being “a hybrid narrative-experimental short film that contains themes of immigration, liminality, psychedelia, and mindfulness.”

“The car quickly became emblematic of the freedom and agency that I yearned for as a young adult in white suburbia,” they recall. “My relationship with home through different domestic spaces in conjunction with the mobility of a car is what gave birth to the concept of the moving room: a hybrid car-house.”

Pradhan Wong Ah Sui cherishes the collaborative efforts that went into their film’s production, having developed the story with their partner Ella Van Dyk ’24, and working with frequent collaborator and first assistant director Nicole Overbaugh ’24.

Overbaugh — a screen studies major with minors in studio art and theatre arts — will be screening their own film, “The Bread Knife,” described as a “dark comedy melodrama, inspired by ‘I Think You Should Leave’ and ‘Marriage Story.’ ”

Taking place on the night of a couple’s one-year anniversary, George plays a prank on Margo, spurring an argument about how they should store their bread knife.

“I love exploring deeply uncomfortable and unfamiliar emotions in my work,” Overbaugh says. “By placing the discomfort on-screen, the audience is forced to sit with those feelings.”

Abby Rhodes ’24, another frequent collaborator of Overbaugh and Pradhan Wong Ah Sui, will screen her newest work “Strangers,” a short horror/drama about a young woman’s death, explained through a conversation between her corpse and the corpse of an older woman at a morgue. Rhodes, a media, culture, and the arts major and screen studies minor, completed “Strangers” as her MCA capstone project.

“This is the film that I am most proud of,” says Rhodes — who, with Zeke Fairley ’25, Rhodes, Pradhan Wong Ah Sui, and Overbaugh, helms the Yonic Production Company — “partly because I am more confident in my skills as a filmmaker, but also because it is my most personal project. In the past two years I have helped make eight Clark-affiliated short films and have been on a lot of professional film and commercial sets. I think that because I have had so much experience in the past two years, the project was less stressful, and I knew exactly what to expect for the most part because the rhythm of filmmaking is roughly the same for every set you will be on.”

This summer, Rhodes will be part of a documentary filmmaking group traveling to Mexico to meet with individuals affected by climate change.

Another filmmaker concerned with climate change is Flora Trost ’24, whose experimental film “Fortune Telling,” deals with climate anxieties and the end of the world, conveyed through found footage and stop-motion storytelling. Trost is a screen studies major with a minor in creative writing.

“News about climate change is inescapable and unstopping. How do we process all of this information? What do we do with it? Do we ruminate? Do we sit in dread?” Trost asks. “My film is an exploration of these questions and fears.”

Trost notes that this project tested her, but ultimately turned into a product that has become a source of pride.

“This was the first project I directed with a complete crew. Making this film was a big learning curve, and at times overwhelming, but I’m so glad I did it. I don’t think I could have had a better experience.”