SCC student film showcased at SIFF

A scene from Refraction, student film
shown at the SIFF

Would you choose love or freedom? That’s the quandary the lead character of the short student film “REFRACTION” finds himself in after the law becomes aware he’s cloned his wife in a world in which cloning is illegal.

The film’s central question was compelling enough to earn it a coveted spot at the Seattle International Film Festival and the honor of being the first entirely student-driven film from SCC to make it to the festival.

The film was made in last year’s Shoreline Community College Production II class, which aims at emulating a working set as much as possible.

“This is a group of students making a professional film,” said film and video professor Kris Boustedt. “And that professionalism is validated by virtue of it being admitted into one of the world’s premier international film festivals.”

“I wanted to write something different than what everyone else was writing,” Cook said of his sci-fi script that’s set in the near future. “I wanted to write sci-fi that deals with the people involved and their relationships rather than with special effects and technology.”

The film was shot over four days and then spent a year in post production. By the time SIFF’s deadline approached, editing was only 75% complete and the film’s director and editor, Bruce Stead, rushed to finish it in time for submission.

“There was a mad scramble to get it in and then for a few days after I tried really hard not to get my hopes up,” Stead said. “Then I got an email that it was accepted and I got really excited, which was immediately replaced by being nervous about all the work needing to be done to get it to a place where we could show it to an audience of 400 people.”

Stead and the team got it polished and the film, which was shot on a budget of just $4,500, showed this past Sunday as part of the Northern Exposure series at SIFF.