The Cougar Chronicle Staff

On May 10, the Visual and Performing Arts Department will host its eighth annual CSUSM Student Media Festival, celebrating the work of students filmmakers on campus. Here’s a look at one of the films that is an official entry in the competition.  

“Can Megan Dunk” by Brittany Duncan

Brittany Duncan’s film  documentary “Can Megan Dunk?” — about a teen basketball player hoping to earn a college scholarship — ends with an epilogue that chronicles the great success Megan would later achieve in her college career.

The epilogue is imaginary, created by Duncan to add a dramatic finish to her student film at Cal State San Marcos, but she hopes things will end up just as well for Megan in real life as they do for her in the film.

That’s because the subject of “Can Megan Dunk?” is Duncan’s younger sister, Megan Geiken, a 6-foot-1 athlete who only began playing basketball in her sophomore year, but made the varsity team through sheer grit, practice and determination.

Duncan said that through the many hours of filming she conducted of practices, games and team workouts at Heritage High School in Romoland, she grew to appreciate her sister more, not just as an athlete but as a person.

“Her determination was not to just be the best on the team, despite the odds against her, but to work hard and succeed so that she could one day have the opportunity to get scholarships and provide a future for herself at such a young age,”Duncan said.

The eight-minute film follows Megan and her team practicing and playing, intercut with interviews of Megan’s coach and their own mother. Duncan admits it was hard trying to be an objective documentarian when she was filming her mom.

“My challenge was to expose the struggles that Megan was going through to be a great player, to dunk a ball and be that one-in-a-million player, but also to show her inner struggles with her mother being a single mom and her dad not being a big influence in her life.

“This was hard because this was my own family, too, and I did not want my mom or her dad to appear weak but rather strong people, like her. I feel that the way in which my mother responded to the questions and with Megan’s commentary they were able to reveal that Megan and her mother are not too different, but in fact both strong women who have conquered the obstacles that life has given them and are continuing to be strong women for themselves and their family.”