While the Tribeca Film Festival annually attracts star-studded audiences, the Columbia University Film Festival has been shining the spotlight on young, up-and-coming graduate student filmmakers for a quarter of a century. On Friday, May 4, the festival will ring in its opening night at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall on Broadway at 65th Street before kicking off its weeklong celebration of student works, accompanied by special events, at theaters on campus and as far as the West Coast. In 1987, the School of the Arts faculty selected a few short films for a one-night screening. Since then, its festival has grown into a showcase that presents over 40 films and a dozen screenplays by graduate MFA film students at major cinema hubs in New York and Los Angeles. "It's a great opportunity to discover rising stars and catch films before they go on to screen and win awards at all the major festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Cannes, New York Film Festival, and many others," said Lydia Cavallo, who has served as festival director for 11 years. For Serbian native Ivan Bukta, the opportunity to present his latest work has proven both "exciting and nerve-wracking." His film "Breakaway" follows the journey of a young woman forced to overcome the damage inflicted by an abusive father. Bukta made this film as a way to deal with an experience of domestic abuse in his own life. "Rather than holding it inside, I was able to empower myself and move past it by sharing my trauma with the world," he said. "So, in a way, this film was a form of therapy for me—an incredibly expensive, laborious, and very public therapy." As a recent screenwriting/directing MFA graduate, Bukta found that the program taught him much about the importance of authenticity in his approach. "I feel that I have grown the most in my understanding of storytelling: what is required for a story to work, how to approach writing and revising, and how to write characters that are fully fleshed-out and three-dimensional," he said. "No screenwriting book can ever teach you that." As a primarily student-run event, the festival includes people from behind the scenes of both the festival and the camera, such as Jed Cowley, a CUFF assistant director and writer and director of "Shale" and "Dear Dog, I Love You." "It creates an environment to learn how to promote yourself and your film. I have learned so much about the filmmaking process because of the requirements of CUFF," Cowley said. "All of my thesis years have been gearing up for and preparing these screenings, so it's very helpful to have it be very professional, but still in the safety net of your school." In this vein, producer Jayda Denise Thompson wanted to do something unlike anything she had created in the past. Her film, "Advantageous," written and directed by Jennifer Phang, tells the story of Gwen, a spokesperson for a radical technology that allows people to overcome their natural disadvantages. "This is a visual effects-heavy film, yet its sensibilities are firmly rooted in drama. I was drawn to the challenge of producing a concept genre film with distinct parameters, while still remaining true to the emotional journey of the story," Thompson said. "It is truly the epitome of what I set out to learn in this program, which is creative collaboration across multiple disciplines." Amid the flurry of pre-festival preparation, Cavallo found it easy to pinpoint her favorite aspect of seeing it come together year after year. "Sitting in the audience at the Walter Reade Theater, sharing the moment with our filmmakers who are screening their films for the first time on the big screen for an audience of family and friends," she said. "To me, that experience is the heart and soul of what this festival is all about." arts@columbiaspectator.com