The academy awards
its first prize
| VISUAL LITERACY EXEMPLIFIED: Michael Roif (inset) and film studies director Catherine Portuges (Photo by Ben Barnhart; inset courtesy Eileen Roif) |
It won’t be a golden statuette, but this academy will soon be giving an award for creativity and excellence in filmmaking and screenwriting. The first $2,500 Michael S. Roif Award in Film Studies will be bestowed upon one or two students in the university’s Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies next fall.
The prize is the result
of a $50,000 gift in memory of Michael Roif, ’79, ’83G from
his father, Joseph Roif of Boca Raton, Florida, on behalf of himself and
his children. It is an important gift for the film studies program, and
will be the first film prize to be awarded at the university. According
to program director Catherine Portuges, “It’s very significant
for us to be able to offer something like this. It says to the students
that what they’re doing is worthwhile.”
The work of any undergraduate enrolled in the film studies certificate program can be nominated by a professor for an award, with finalists to be selected by a faculty committee. In addition to films and screenplays, students’ critical essays can be proposed for a prize.
Michael Roif (1957-1993) came to the university in 1975 after finishing high school in Sharon, Massachusetts. He majored in plant and soil sciences, earning a B.S. in 1979 and an MBA in 1983. An animal lover, he became an activist with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals while he was on campus. He was outgoing and enjoyed music, dancing, movies, and popular culture of all kinds, according to his sister Eileen Roif of Enfield, Connecticut. For fun he mixed dance tapes, deejayed parties at the Bluewall, and watched loads of new and old movies on video. “He loved all movies,” his sister says. After graduation, he worked in a record store in Hadley, becoming manager and continuing there while he studied for his MBA. With his business degree, he moved to New York City and was a buyer of men’s clothing for Lord & Taylor. Later, he moved to Florida and managed a T.J. Maxx store.
His great love of motion pictures, and of UMass and the valley, gave the Roif family the idea of endowing a prize in film studies. They wanted Michael’s name to live on, and thought film studies was exactly the kind of program he would have chosen to support.
The film studies program has grown steadily
in popularity over its ten years of existence, awarding fifty to seventy-five
certificates each year, with a current enrollment of nearly 200. Students
in any major are eligible for the program and need eighteen credit hours
to complete it. Drawing upon faculty expertise in a dozen or more disciplines
from anthropology to communication to Spanish, the program offers a multitude
of courses in film history, national cinemas, theory, criticism, and production.
It also organizes an annual multicultural film festival, which often brings
filmmakers to campus and draws consistently large audiences. Last year’s
“Slam” (directed by Marc Levin and winner of prizes at the Cannes
and Sundance festivals), introduced by actor Saul Williams’ slam
poetry session, drew a standing-room-only crowd in the Herter Hall auditorium.
It’s a safe bet Michael Roif would have liked the multicultural film festival. And, had it been offered when he was at the university, he surely would have taken School of Management Professor Larry Zacharias’ course: Movies and Business: American Business History and Culture through Film. It’s even likely that if he’d been an undergraduate after the inception of film studies, he’d have been tempted to get a certificate in the program. His former co-worker and housemate, Leslie Banas of Hadley, recalls what an astute viewer he was. “If you saw a film with Michael,” she says, “you’d see a whole new movie.”
It’s just this quality of visual literacy that is a hallmark of UMass students in film studies, says Portuges, noting they tend to be sophisticated and critical film viewers. Anna Feder ’00, who designed her own film major through BDIC (Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration) and is now working on the script for a feature film, believes this sophistication comes from the fact that the university and the valley provide access to filmmakers and experimental films, advantages “you don’t normally find outside of places like New York.” UMass film studies students, including the thirty-five to forty a year she estimates design their own film majors the way she did, are “driven by an understanding and appreciation of all aspects of film,” she says.
Feder also notes that UMass film students must be “extra driven” if they want to make films (or more likely – due to the high cost of film – videos) because of the intense competition here for equipment and facilities. The Michael S. Roif Award will help underwrite future filmmaking for its winners. Portuges says that students will likely use their cash prize for film stock, video equipment upgrades, or post-production and distribution costs. They may also use it for entering film festivals, which usually have submission fees.
— Jan Whitaker
