Every film student has heard lecture after lecture on how competitive the film industry is. Those lectures must make it all the more rewarding to get $100,000 to make a short film about kids raging war with each other on the rooftops of Pilsen.

Miguel Silveira, a production instructor in Columbia’s Film and Video Department, and his production company, Pangea, were recently awarded the IFP Grant. The grant provides $100,000 in goods and services, including film, editing, trucks, cameras and various incidentals, to produce a short film. Silveira and his producer, fellow Columbia alumnus Andrew Eick, are using the grant to make a short film called Rooftop Wars.

Silveira said that at the last minute, the deadline for the grant’s application was extended by a month. He said that due to time constraints, they wouldn’t have been ready to apply had it not been extended.

“Which was perfect,” Silveira said. “It was meant to be.”

Michael Humphreys, an adjunct faculty member in Columbia’s Film and Video Department, said that receiving a grant is no easy task.

“I’ve worked very hard in the past to write grants to raise money for film projects, and it’s difficult,” Humphreys said. “I must have sent out 100 proposals-requests for money-and I maybe got money for 10 or 15. And that’s highly successful.”

Eick said they applied for the same grant in 2006 and didn’t win. However, the loss wasn’t in vain. Both Eick and Silveira saw the film that won and agreed that it was merited. Still, Silveira was determined to apply again.

“We decided that we were going to apply every year until we got the grant,” Silveira said. “So I feel humbled and very excited for the opportunity to communicate these ideas we have in our script.”

The story for Rooftop Wars takes place in Pilsen, Silveira’s neighborhood. The plot of the film shows children “at war,” which the filmmaker said has “a natural aspect” to it.

“It’s not like gang violence or anything. It’s just 10-year-old kids being kids,” Eick said. “They take potatoes and tomatoes and corks and eggs and they’re going to fight another group of kids that’s across the way.”

Silveira understands this first-hand. He grew up in Brazil where he did some “crazy stuff.” At the age of 12, he was causing mischief on a frightening level.

“We were stealing gas out of cars and putting them in bottles and making Molotov cocktails and would just throw it at people’s houses,” he said. “Luckily nobody ever got injured. And right after we did that, we were like, ‘Oh my God, the house is gonna burn!’ So we’d extinguish the fire with sand and whatever we had and then run away.”

While the film won’t take a soft approach, Silveira said he doesn’t want to film violence for the sake of violence.

“There’s a lot of films out there, not only from the United States, that cash in on how exotic and how interesting it is that gangs are out there killing each other,” he said. “I’m not interested in cashing in on this idea whatsoever.”

Silveira said he wishes to address issues of war and immigration, but doesn’t want to take an activist’s approach to the subjects.

“We don’t have this romantic idea that we actually can change a lot of things, but we do want to talk about it,” he said.

When they start filming in May, Eick and Silveira said they’re going to look to Columbia students to act as the crew. Filming will take place entirely in Chicago and primarily in the Pilsen neighborhood.

If you’re a film student and are interested in working on the crew of Rooftop Wars this summer, send an e-mail to Eick and Silveira at RooftopWars@gmail.com.