The small bell hanging from the dark blue door if the Gnu's Room jingled quietly as friends, students, parents and other Auburn residents gathered Friday night to watch local filmmaker Alessio Summerfield's short film "Chernobyl."
"It's good to be able to have an opportunity to go to these kinds of events," said Tim Trevathan, senior in accounting. "I think I'm going to start going to more."
Mismatched chairs were placed in imperfect lines in front of the pull-down screen over the window at the front of the store, and the audience was surrounded by shelves holding colorful paintings and prints, used books and other eclectic knickknacks.
Summerfield's film opened with a young adult man named Cameron waking up to an early morning call from his mother, who tells him his father has died. His daily routine includes going to work, trying to fix his broken-down car and meeting a female clerk at a gas station. But Cameron continues to have flashbacks and haunting dreams about an abandoned house and being lost in it as he tries to deal with his grief.
"The abandoned house is supposed to represent how the main character is trapped in his thoughts," said Summerfield, senior in radio, television and film. "He's sort of lost in this trance, so we decided to use a giant physical venue to represent his mindset as opposed to just implying that he's miserable."
In the end Cameron overcomes his pain by helping the young clerk to sort out her emotional issues.
The inspiration for the film and its name came from a culmination of stumbling upon dilapidated houses and looking at a series of photographs of Chernobyl, the power plant in Russia, Summerfield said.
"I was going for a walk through Auburn and came across a cul-de-sac of abandoned three-story houses that were all condemned," Summerfield said. "I was sad about how everything looked, so I wandered through the houses and got hit with an inspiration to shoot something there--not really sure what at the time."
While attending West Georgia Tech in LaGrange, Ga., for one year, Summerfield said he began slowly writing the script.
After the meltdown of the power plant in the '60s, the entire city of Chernobyl was evacuated, Summerfield said.
"In the photos, everything looked so beautiful, but came from something so terrible," Summerfield said. "My film is sort of a personal Chernobyl to the character Cameron. He feels like he's going to melt down, but in the end he ends up fixing everything and making something beautiful out of nothing."
Drew Morris, senior in French, said the scene on the bridge when Cameron convinces the clerk not to jump was his favorite part.
"Right at that point of the film, it finally all made sense to me," Morris said. "It was the same point at which everything made sense to the characters, too."
After nine months of writing, shooting, editing and finalizing, Summerfield finished his 38-minute long film with the help of unpaid friends and acquaintances.
"Auburn definitely has a bit of a home-y feel, and everyone was willing to help out with no money at all," Summerfield said. "The social networking here is as tight as rope, and it's beautiful when it comes together to help create something like this."
The Gnu's Room hosts other events including an open-mic night for poets, storytellers musicians and other artists.
"Our goal is to promote a sense of community, so we try to have events that appeal to a lot of different kinds of people."
It also offers the 'Science Cafe,' during which experts in different fields speak about topics like textile engineering or nuclear fission and a weekly writing group for anyone interested in sharing writing styles and studying authors of various kinds of literature.
The Gnu's Room encourages local filmmakers like Summerfield to schedule screenings each month.
"The film was well-made, and it made me realize that when people are wanting to do something with all of their heart, it can turn out to be something really cool and entertaining," Trevathan said.
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