As cinema and screen studies students at Oswego State prepare to enter the film industry, the cinema and screen studies program does its best to bring in established independent filmmakers to offer their insight.

On Feb. 16, Alex Méndez Giner, an accomplished independent filmmaker by way of Venezuela, visited Oswego State presenting his 2015 film “The Book of Judith” before students and faculty in Room 122 in the Shineman Center.

“Alex Méndez Giner is a brilliant independent filmmaker with a lot of knowledge in cinematography, directing and screenwriting,” said Jacob Dodd, an assistant cinema and screen studies professor at Oswego State. “I think he did a fantastic job bestowing both the creative and the practical elements of filmmaking.”

“The Book of Judith” was a project Giner revealed to have spent two-and-a-half years creating, with the influence for the film’s plot stemming from the religious book of the same name.

The idea of a female lead character appealed to Giner, with the story’s central character, Judith, being a widow.

Giner is also an assistant film professor at Syracuse University. While teaching screenwriting, Giner would often cover the plotline, the hero’s journey in screenwriting and some elements that intrigued him.

“When we talk about the hero’s journey, it’s a popular concept, but that hero we talk about is male,” Giner said. “We’re describing a male going through this journey and I was wondering, ‘Would it be the same thing having a female hero?’ That was something that was on my mind and I started to do some research.”

Giner’s research led him to a graphic painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” which depicted the former decapitating the latter.

The vivid and realistic nature of Caravaggio’s painting resonated deeply with Giner and inspired him to adapt the story for the screen in a modern-day setting and to strive for lighting similar to the work of Caravaggio and Dutch master painters.

“I’m interested in this Dutch time,” Giner said. “What [Dutch masters] did with the construction, the idea of not being an actual picture but something more of a human process than [simply] putting it on a canvas, that’s something I was interested in.”

Giner’s adaptation possessed what is known as an experimental narrative, which also placed a heavy emphasis on the visual presentation Giner had presented with his Dutch masters-inspired lighting and cinematography which captivated students in attendance like junior cinema and screen studies major Victoria Jayne.

“It was beautifully shot,” Jayne said. “The lighting was amazing. I literally was [in awe] the entire time. There wasn’t a bad shot in the entire film, and I liked the dream quality of it. [The presentation] was very informative.”

The film’s success has seen it be selected to nine different film festivals, including international festivals in Italy, Romania, Greece and South Africa.

Although Giner described the two-and-a-half year process as a “difficult endeavor,” he expressed his passion for the project and his filmmaking career.

“There’s this desire,” Giner said. “I just love the image, to tell stories and to make visual experiments with my stories.”