OVS alum Chris Cole has long had an interest in film, and he brought that passion with him to the Upper Campus when he attended from grades 10 to 12.
In his sophomore year, Mr. Cole traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico to volunteer at an orphanage, and when he returned he made a documentary of his time spent there and showed it to his classmates and teachers.
Fast forward just a few short years and Mr. Cole has now transformed his hobby of making school documentaries into the business of producing films for the big screen.
Recently, the New York resident showed his film Entonces Nosotros (About Us), a romantic comedy set in Costa Rica, at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Before the February screening, Mr. Cole returned to the Upper Campus and invited faculty members to attend.
The film first started while Mr. Cole was in graduate school at Columbia University, where he met his collaborator, Hernan Jimenez. Mr. Cole read Mr. Jimenez’s script, and the pair decided they should create the film.
“I hadn’t planned on doing something like that just because it’s very tough to make a movie, especially when you’re in grad school,” explained Mr. Cole, a 2005 graduate of the Upper Campus and executive producer for Entonces Nosotros. “I was drawn to script because it was a comedic yet honest look at the end of a relationship that managed to subvert the usual expectations of a romantic comedy.”
Mr. Cole and Mr. Jimenez, who is the writer, director, and lead actor of the film, went through pre-production for two months, and shot the film in Costa Rica for six weeks.
The pair were also heavily involved in the casting process, casting the lead actresses from Argentina, because of the immense talent there that is not widely recognized.
In April of Mr. Cole’s and Mr. Jimenez’s senior year, Entonces Nosotros premiered in Panama. The film has since become the fourth highest grossing Costa Rican film ever, and was that country’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards.
[youtube]www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFUdVQRKh3I[/youtube]
In May, Entonces Nosotros will be available on HBO, and Mr. Cole has already started working on several projects, one being another romantic comedy with Mr. Jimenez, and the other being a horror film.
OVS English teacher Crystal Davis taught Mr. Cole during his time at OVS, and remembers him as a deep thinker who was very involved in international and social issues.
“I think that sensitivity spilled over into everything he did,” Ms. Davis said. “And I was delighted and surprised when he came to visit [OVS], and he was able to recognize that some of the training he received as a writer helped him in his role of producing films.”
OVS science and music teacher Lisa Boyd attended the showing of Entonces Nosotros in Santa Barbara.
“I loved it,” she said. “It was a romantic comedy, it was in Spanish with subtitles, I laughed, I was moved by it, it was fun.”
Throughout his time at OVS, Mr. Cole participated in the school plays, playing the lead in all, and working with Mrs. Boyd, who directed the plays.
Mrs. Boyd also was one of Mr. Cole’s dorm parents, and describes her and her husband, photography teacher John Boyd, as almost “surrogate parents” to Mr. Cole during his time in high school.
After high school, Mr. Cole went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in finance and political science from Arizona State University, and a master’s in creative producing from Columbia University, where he received the Carla Kuhn Fellowship, Producing Faculty Fellowship, and Film Program Scholarship.
But even with all that scholarship and expertise under his belt, Mr. Cole said it was nice to return to OVS recently and touch base with the people and the place that helped spark his creativity.
“It was great [to see Mrs. Boyd] because she was one of like the creative lynchpins for me at OVS,” Mr. Cole said. “It was cool to come full circle and have her there.”