After winning awards in both Bloomington and Hollywood, “My Dear Arthur,” a short film by recent IU alumnae Eli and Lu Bevins, is making its way abroad.
The film tells the story of 17th-century villagers hunting a witch, who is forced to magically seal herself and her son into a painting only to be released centuries later. It will screen at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the popular international film festival held in France each May.
“We just received an email, and it really caught us off guard,” Eli said.
“My Dear Arthur” was originally made for Campus Movie Fest, a traveling film competition that challenges filmmakers nationwide to create a five-minute film in one week. The festival returns to Bloomington each March.
Making the film was an attempt to challenge themselves to make something unique, Eli said.
“We wanted to do a film that was just different, as far as the setting,” she said. “We’re from Philadelphia, so we’ve never been on a farm, we’ve never been around horses.”
Because of the film industry’s obsession with gore and special effects, Eli said they chose to avoid those visual aspects and focus on the story.
“With ‘My Dear Arthur,’ I hope people can see the creative side behind the thriller,” she said.
Although the twin sisters submitted three films to last year’s Campus Movie Fest, they said “My Dear Arthur” was both the film they were the most proud of and the film they devoted the most work to.
Lu said their cast and crew came together through word of mouth.
“We didn’t actually hold auditions,” she said. “We trusted everyone, and we only had one meeting and table read.”
Kevin Carpenter, who helped shoot the film, said the sisters were able to quickly bring together a cast and crew ranging from professionals to amateurs.
“They had an air that they really knew what they were doing,” he said. “I remember the first meeting that I had met with them, they already had a script made, they had brought in so many people that they had known and they were very respectful.”
Heather Owens, who played the witch in “My Dear Arthur,” said Eli and Lu’s professional atmosphere propelled the film’s success.
“They know what they want, they’re flexible to change it, but they’re very professional,” she said. “And I think they’re the team that has a chance to make it.”
“My Dear Arthur” was shot over the course of a single day and Eli said it took them three days total to complete it.
“It was a long day — we started filming early morning and stopped filming at about midnight,” Owens said. “But because they’re so great to work with, there was never a time where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so tired, let me go to bed.’ The whole process was just really fun.”
During Bloomington’s Campus Movie Fest finale last spring, “My Dear Arthur” and “The Exit,” another film of theirs, were chosen to advance to the finals in Hollywood.
“We were shocked to get two awards, or even just to get one,” Lu said.
That summer, the IU School of Informatics and Computing funded the sisters’ flight to Los Angeles to be a part of CMF Hollywood, where the top films from schools around the country compete for awards.
“We met a lot of great people. It was exciting,” Eli said. “The red carpet was the first real red carpet that we’ve been on, so we were excited about that as well.”
Campus Movie Fest selects 30 of their films to be screened at Cannes each year to showcase the work of upcoming student filmmakers.
Although Eli and Lu are unable to attend this year’s Cannes Film Festival, they created a GoFundMe page to help Owens fly out to Cannes.
“We really want to have someone there to represent our film,” Eli said. “And also, it represents Indiana University. So it’s a great opportunity for her, it’s a great opportunity for us and it’s a great opportunity for the school to be out there.”
Since completing their master’s degrees from the School of Informatics and Computing in 2015, Eli and Lu have moved back to Philadelphia. They are currently building a portfolio to help them break into the film industry in either Los Angeles or up-and-coming Atlanta.
However, Lu said their time at IU has benefitted them the most.
“We’ve always been writing since we were in elementary school, but it wasn’t until we went off to Bloomington that we started growing as filmmakers,” she said. “It’s been a big part of our filmmaking careers so far.”
