The angels behind a student project

Industry largesse plays a vital role in 'Inspiration'

''The Thrilla in Wasilla'' features friends of filmmaker Jeff Stern holding masks of the candidates.

Martin Zaharinov majors in directing narrative fiction at Emerson College, but don't underestimate the importance of his minor in leadership and management. Lately he's demonstrating plenty of that important filmmaking skill known as getting it made.

Zaharinov is founder and president of IS Films Inc. (www.isfilms.org), a nonprofit intended to help fund student films beyond the normal thesis projects. And he and the IS (Independent Student) team, which includes treasurer Elizabeth Daly and non-student board members Paul Turano and Glen Livolsi, have reeled in some serious bounty for their first production.

"Inspiration," filming in and around the city this month, is a roughly 25-minute film with a cast of four, written by Michael Gray Beckett (Emerson '84) and directed by Jackie Carr (an Emerson senior). It's the kind of indie often shot on the most threadbare of shoestrings.

But Zaharinov and company have scored a ton of film-industry largesse to get "Inspiration" done right: the loan of a complete 35mm camera and equipment package from Panavision (worth low six figures to rent for a few weeks), a film stock grant from Kodak (worth perhaps $3,500), and processing from the FotoKem post-production company that Zaharinov said will probably be worth $30,000 or more.

All this is just the beginning, says Zaharinov, who is credited as executive producer and assistant director. He hopes IS Films will become a producing umbrella that will help many more students realize their filmmaking dreams.

"Since [the Boston Film and Video Foundation] fell apart a few years ago, there's been a big gap in the community," Zaharinov said. "I felt like I could help fill that."

Among his supporters is board member Livolsi, vice president of advertising and sales for IzzitGreen (www.izzitgreen.com), who got involved after his friend Beckett introduced him to Zaharinov.

"He had a business plan for IS Films, he had a business plan for 'Inspiration.' For a kid who didn't have a lot of business experience, I was impressed," Livolsi said.

"If I had one wish to do my life over, I would probably have gone out to California at 19 and tried" the movie business, Livolsi said with a chuckle. Now helping Zaharinov raise funds and refine his business methods is both a chance to grab a piece of that idle dream as well as give back after a lucrative career in the software industry, he said.

Daly is also an Emerson student ('09), and was the first to join Zaharinov's quest when he started organizing IS Films as a nonprofit. Turano is artist in residence on Emerson's Visual & Media Arts faculty.

"Inspiration," with a cast of nonunion actors working for free, has already shot four of its scheduled seven days and is set to wrap on Nov. 9. Zaharinov said they will submit to the student Academy Awards by the April 1 deadline. Among the dozens of students working on the production, he said, is a team of marketing and writing students who'll help promote it.

KNOCKOUT PUNCH: Only a couple of days left until the election, which means you might want to click over to www.thegoodoldfuture.com sooner rather than later to watch "The Thrilla in Wasilla: Rescuing the Future of America." Well, Democrats will anyway.

The decidedly low-budget, low-fi effort, shot in early October on Super8, features friends of local filmmaker Jeff Stern holding masks of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Sarah Palin in front of their faces as they enact a Dem-friendly melodrama. Palin and her ax-wielding hubby, Todd, kidnap a fresh-faced young lad who is the aforementioned future, and Obama and Biden race to the rescue.

Things get interesting when Bill and Hillary Clinton join the fray. The finale is a Sarah-Hillary dustup including some mean holds and throws courtesy of cast members Melissa Santley and Penelope Shaw from the Boston League of Women Wrestlers (BLOWW).

"I, like many people, have been fascinated by this particular election," said Stern, an Obama supporter who teaches video production at Bentley College and runs the Open Screen nights on the second Tuesday of each month at the Coolidge Corner. "I feel like it's been going on so long that I know all these characters so well."

But why does Hillary, instead of Obama, face down Palin? Is that a sign of who Stern supported in the primary?

"I wanted to present Obama as a coalition leader, someone who is a cool leader, whose maybe number one skill is bringing people together and building a good team," said Stern, of Cambridge. "[But] I wanted to emphasize the Clintons would be essential to him winning. So I certainly am a fan of Hillary, but I've been an Obama supporter all along.

"And just storywise, I was just a little uncomfortable with Obama fighting Palin. I wanted it to be Hillary against Palin, that felt like a more appropriate fight to me," he said.

They shot in Cambridge and Somerville. Artist Peggy Nelson made the masks; the budget was "maybe $250," Stern said. The rock score is by The Avon Barksdale, a band in which Stern plays drums. (And yes, the band is named for a character on "The Wire.")

Further installments may follow the election, Stern said.

A REMINDER: Screenings for "I Refused To Die" and "The Morgenthau Story" are set for Nov. 10 at the Studio Cinema in Belmont at 7 p.m. The two films about genocide and human rights will bookend a 45-minute panel discussion featuring filmmakers, historians, and both concentration camp survivors and their liberators. Call 617-484-9751 or 617-484-1706.