This past weekend, I went to all the student films at SunDeis. That's right, all of them-over six hours' worth. That's a lot of movies, even if some were just three minutes long. The longest? The Ranch, a drama directed by Chapin H. Hemmingway which ran 36 minutes; the shortest was a 90-second black-and-white cartoon, "Icarus," directed by Dartmouth College's Sonia Lei. Student filmmakers submitted 50 films; 23 made the cut to be screened during the festival. A few weren't memorable, some were irritating, but the majority were interesting, intriguing and-most of all-a treat to watch.

The best was the comedy Hit or Miss, directed by David LaCarubba and Mike Ouellette from the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University in Waltham. The 30-minute film features two men who one day up and quit their jobs to become hit men after watching a DVD titled, yes, Hit or Miss. Comedy ensues as the men run around many recognizable sites in Waltham, eventually succeeding in killing a man, only to be drafted into new and more exciting office-cubicle jobs that obviously parallel the old ones.

The film awarded "Best of Brandeis" was a drama from director Seth Bernstein '06 about first-year roommates trying to balance relationships and religion. The cinematography and lighting in The One I Love were orchestrated wonderfully-most of the scenes were shot like a play's, although the Brandeis-set locations remained obvious (everywhere from the chapels to 15 Dartmouth St.) Bernstein now works as a lighting designer in New York, and his professional touch is evident.

A few of the movies, especially those from the Center for Digital Arts, were, predictably, exercises in digital technology. Identity, a film about identity theft, did not have a particularly exciting plot, but the digital morphing of faces and bodies was so masterfully done that it proved a compelling watch nonetheless.

Another film worth mentioning was the professional-quality Ex Machina, directed and starring Shai Davis, a student from Harvard University. The film used an intriguing blend of archive footage, animation and well-traveled documentary footage to explore Davis's own Jewish faith and the life and times of an early-20th century Jewish prophet, Jacob Sabato della Torre. It's an intellectual movie, one that viewers will learn much from as well as enjoy on screen.

The most "foreign" of the films came from outside Brandeis. Ruben Calderon's comedy about a woman playing a trick on a susceptible man, was a tribute to a Merchant-Ivory period piece (think A Room with a View or Maurice). It came complete with the soft, yellowish lighting typical of '80s British film, as well as the appropriate drawing-room atmosphere and setting.

Wellesley College's Danielle M. Krudy submitted the other, which was shot mostly in Brussels on public transportation and on the street. Its story is told in English, French and German with a very documentary, person-on-the-street feel. Moodily lit by street lights, it emphasizes shots of Ms. Krudy's very nice cheekbones with a lot of chatter about, as its SunDeis description says, "a film student, disillusioned and confused, seeking guidance and empowerment from two very different sources," a female German filmmaker and a single mother in Brussels.

Several other movies caught my attention-a rather weird one featuring a bicycle pump as as timer and a hard-boiled-egg eating contest; another using shoes to discern protagonists; The Wedding, which featured a cameo by the lovely Assistant Dean of Student Life Alwina Bennett; and a cute film from Brandeis that uses the limits of movie trailers to define a relationship. The films were all well-made student projects and some of those I mentioned were beyond my expectations. The selected entries were varied and interesting, and the event remains a great source of publicity for film students on the East Coast.