May 12, 2008

By Dean Caparaz (Cal '90)

BERKELEY - Producing. Directing. Writing. Lacrosse. Katie Felber loves it all.

An aspiring filmmaker, Felber is also a sophomore attacker on the Cal lacrosse team who boasts a 3.65 grade-point average. While her hopes for a good start to the 2008 season were curtailed by a foot injury, she has been busy in front of and behind the camera.

When Felber isn't rehabbing, attending games or going to class, the native of Westlake Village, Calif., finds the time to produce the occasional movie and work at CalTV, UC Berkeley's online TV station at caltv.berkeley.edu. Felber works on "The CalTV Show," a comedic view of news and events in and around campus. She wrote shows in February and March that focused on her search for love via an "ElimiDATE"-style contest.

A member of GIANT Film, Cal's student filmmaking group, Felber also created a five-minute movie called "Fool's Paradise" for Campus Movie Fest, a nationwide competition that reached Cal last fall.

Entertainment runs in the family for the Southern California product, whose father, Jim, previously worked in television production at Disney. Her younger brother, Bryan, also hopes to work in the film industry.

The siblings began their foray into cinematography when Katie was in the third grade, making horror films, comedies and adventure movies with a handheld video camera. She graduated to making documentaries, including one called "The 1968 Summer Olympics: An Encounter Between Black Athletes and Authority" that she made while at Agoura High School.

Lacrosse also runs in her family; she had cousins who played at Hofstra and San Diego State. Felber played a variety of sports, including softball, soccer and basketball, growing up, but she dropped the others to concentrate on lacrosse.

When it came time to pick a college, Felber didn't let the abundance of film schools in Southern California distract her from her interest in a school that combined academic excellence, the chance to play Division I lacrosse and a unique environment. Cal won out over Brown and Stanford. Cal's interdisciplinary studies field major (ISF) was a selling point; she's considering a double major with rhetoric.

"The ISF program is great because it's so flexible," she said. "It allows me to address different issues. I'm into the individual search for meaning in literature and film, and I'm also interested in philosophy, sociology, maybe some psychoanalysis."

The opportunity to help grow lacrosse, a predominantly East Coast sport, in the west is another big reason she enjoys being at Cal.

"I've helped coach some kids in my community and having them realize they can keep playing at the D1 level, especially in California, is great," Felber said. "With a lot of younger girls right now, it's really inspiring for them to see that. "Lacrosse was an incentive to get me up to Berkeley," she added. "But I probably would've chosen it anyway because it's so distinct. Cal is academically and socially stimulating, and it's culturally and athletically stimulating. Cal was the perfect fit for me."