STUDENT FILMS ARE ‘JOLT OF DISCOVERY’

Watching student films can either give that genuine jolt of discovery or the oppressive airlessness of “viewing product”--films so clearly meant as industry calling cards you wonder that they’re not engraved. So, for those whose pleasure or whose job it is to scout the unveiling of gifted film makers, the quality of this batch from USC and from Loyola Marymount is heartening. (A UCLA film-makers’ screening will be reviewed later.)

The 1986 USC films will be screened for the public at 7 tonight at the George Lucas Building on campus. The find of the dramatic entries is “Tell Me,” a tender comedy-drama about adolescent loves, loyalty and deceptions, written and (especially) directed by Mary Beth Fielder with an assurance and sensitivity that is stunning. Directing 12-year-olds can’t be easy, but Fielder’s warm and lucid film seems to shine with inner knowledge of her material, and her young cast is flawless--in particular, lovely Maureen Flannigan in the central role and Freddy Othmer as her sweet, chubby, insightful date.

Another of the strong narrative films is “Asleep at the Wheel,” directed by M. Jay Roach and written by Jeff Stolzer. What more can be mined from that well-tapped vein, the ‘60s free spirit (Laura Bassett) who bursts into the life of an uptight ‘80s yuppie (Joel Hoffman)? See this and learn, and especially notice the nifty credits that develop like Polaroids, a bit of whimsical invention by the movie’s co-editor, Roy Seeger.

From the school’s strong documentary unit comes a haunting, searing and almost surreal examination of the nighttime world of Los Angeles’ homeless, “In the Wee Wee Hours,” by Izak BenMeir, with exceptional photography by Bruce Dorfman. Their gifts of empathy are behind these extraordinary and articulate interviews, made in the missions, on the street corners and in the painstakingly constructed dwellings of these frightened street people, so invisible to their country’s leaders.

“Addressless,” by Laura L. Scheerer and Andrew Millstein, focuses on people only marginally better off, the van dwellers of the Venice public parking lot and, in particular, a husband whose wife is severely disabled. We may at times feel like intruders here, and some statements go unquestioned even by the probing eye of Millstein’s camera, but it is a wrenching and thoughtful work.

Among the experimental films is Sam Kaufman’s “Up,” spare, funny and cumulatively unsettling, as a young parochial schoolgirl (Naomi Nakano) struggles up a dauntingly steep street with a burden both actual and symbolic. Kaufman’s camera work and Naritoshi Tosha’s music both deserve special mention.

These are only highlights from the evening’s 17 films, which are steadfastly well-executed and sometimes wildly ambitious. They are also an uncanny illustration of the truth of that oldest classroom homily: Write what you know about. What most young film makers know about spy capers or the devious corporate world or even revenge of the nerds comes from prolonged exposure to television and other people’s movies, and feels it. When they work from intimate knowledge, innate or acquired, the results are startling.