Two BHHS Grads Win International Film Award

Two Beverly Hills High School ’06 alumni won awards at the Los Angeles stop of the international 48 Hour Film Project, held Aug. 27 in Hollywood. 

Filmmakers Max Goldman and Mike Harris directed and produced The Crowd Pleasers, a seven-minute film that won the best screenwriting award as well as one of six audience awards.

The Crowd Pleasers is a parody about a Los Angeles film duo who start their careers at the 48 Hour Film Project awards. To watch it, click here. (Note to Patch readers: The clip contains profanity.)

Goldman is a second-year law student and graduate of Yale. Harris, a film studies graduate of UC Berkeley, works in the film industry. The two wrote, acted, filmed and edited their award-winning entry in exactly 48 hours.    

The 48 Hour Film Project was founded in Washington, D.C., in 2001 and has since grown to an international competition. Thousands of filmmakers made four-to-seven-minute films in 80 cities on five continents this year as part of the project.

"While the time constraints are part of the competition's challenge, we worked very efficiently together,” said Goldman, who is the older son of Board of Education member Myra Lurie. 

“Good communication, extensive experience filming together and a cooperative cast all played a role in our success,” added Harris.

There were 84 teams in this year’s Los Angeles stop of the 48 Hour Film Project. Each competition opens with a random drawing in which teams select a film genre and are assigned a character, prop and line of dialogue that must appear in their film. Goldman and Harris drew the “mockumentary” category. Their film had to include a politician named Jeremy North, a dust mask and the line, “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

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