Chapman grads triumph at Fine Cut ceremony

Photo Courtesy of PBS SoCal

“Stay Out of the Sun” is a short film about the ongoing effects of colorism across generations. But it is also so much more. For four Chapman University graduates, it represents their lived experiences and the success of the film vindicates their journey in filmmaking.

The quartet took home an award at the 26th annual Fine Cut Festival of Films, held at The Eagle Theater at Vidiots on Sept. 16. Former students and filmmakers Nidhi Kumar, Vivienne Ayres, Zola Franchi and Ximena Escobar, who served as the film’s director of photography, won the Best Documentary award for their short film .

Fine Cut is a festival that showcases the latest and greatest in student films from universities across Southern California, with the goal of offering them recognition and resources to help them continue their careers. In recent years, Fine Cut has expanded the breadth of submissions and where they come from, extending to less well-known film programs like those at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), San Diego State University (SDSU) and Biola University. Alumni of Fine Cut include Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, Patricia Cardoso and Ryan Coogler (yes, that Ryan Coogler).

Along with the additional schools whose work it celebrates, Fine Cut has made prizes and forms of support a more integral part of the program. The prize packages given to this year’s winning filmmakers included a $2,500 savings deposit from First Entertainment Credit Union as well as access to a range of filmmaking tools such as rental equipment and animation software.

The filmmakers behind “Stay Out of the Sun” said their feelings ranged from ecstatic to surprised. But they were mostly fulfilled by their win when I spoke to them in the aftermath of the event, amid a generous helping of congratulations and goodies from festival staff and attendees. 

The experiences of model and activist Seema Hari served as the impetus for the short’s exploration of colorism, with the scope of the project growing significantly larger as the filmmakers found more subjects to speak to.

“We found Seema first, and she was an activist who talked about colorism and experienced it in the past because of how dark her skin is. Originally, we were going to do it just on Seema, and then we thought we should do it on different (people of color) and get all of their experiences instead of just one person's experience,” director Nidhi Kumar said. 

Kumar continued: “So we really wanted to expand the story to be more of a look into everybody's life, more than just one character’s, and also some of us had experienced colorism in our own lives.” 

The trio of directors produced the film over the course of three semesters for their Community Voices class, which gives students hands-on experience working as a team on documentaries about  social issues.

“I think as time progressed, we realized, even though we were making this documentary at a school (in) a predominantly white community, that we wanted this documentary to feel like it was for people of color, by people of color,” director Zola Franchi said.

The Community Voices course provides the filmmakers a budget to produce their work. In lieu of investing in better equipment, the filmmakers used the money to buy flights to pursue more of their subjects all over the U.S., and talk to a diverse group of people, both in age and race. 

They headed up and down the East Coast to seek out and talk to some of the folks featured in the film. That’s where Ximena Escobar came in, who was the director of photography for the sections shot in that excursion. In addition, her film photography stills are featured throughout.

“I was very lucky, and I was very grateful to have been able to be on (this project) because I also learned so much … I'm fair-skinned, so I get a lot more privilege from that. So it was a really incredible project to be on and also with great people to be (working) with as well,” Escobar said.

Franchi said getting to see the short on the big screen with a crowd at the ceremony struck a chord.

“It's times like these, and any time that we get to show the film on a big screen, that I feel very lucky to be reminded why we started making the project and just the memories of making it with all these lovely people,” Franchi said.

The win at Fine Cut was the joyful end to an uncertain path. The filmmakers sometimes questioned their instincts towards the topic they’d selected and their approach to exploring it.

“Generally, I think that we were very self-conscious of this project because it was such a unique style of filmmaking. And I feel like there we had a lot of doubts from even our professor and from others. And so I feel we had a lot to prove with this project,” director Vivienne Ayres said. “And I feel, by winning this and also going to other festivals and just hearing how it has struck a chord with (people), it's definitely made it all feel worth it. We felt crazy at some points, and now we're feeling less and less crazy.”

“Stay Out of the Sun” isn’t currently available, but the rest of the Fine Cut slate is streaming at pbssocal.org/finecut and on the free PBS app.