Director of photography Ambily Bose, director Tesla Wilson and club member Eli Shindell work on shooting Algorithm, a film about a young time-traveling physicist.

The stars are dressed in snazzy clothing. The red carpet is rolled out. The films are projected on the big screen.

The Maryland Filmmakers Club presents the Winter Film Festival Friday night featuring 10 short films — all student-produced. 2012 marks the third year of the on-campus film festival, which is now biannual.

Audience members receive ballots at intermission to vote for their favorite film as the recipient of the audience choice award. This year’s selection features dramas, comedies and mockumentaries, many of which are set in a college environment, said club president Peter Garafalo.

Here are a few of the highlights.

God’s Will — This comedy shifts the function of the word “will” from a desire to a tangible object; God dies, so Jesus, Satan and Death are sitting in an office having his will read to them.

But these personas aren’t your normal Jesus-Satan-Death personas — Jesus is a frat star, Satan is a “sad sack” and Death is a Willy Wonka-esque character, said director Daniel Lerner, a sophomore psychology major.

Assurance — This college student whodunnit is about a guy who’s framed for murdering his roommate. He knows the leader of a gang really did murder the roommate, so in order to save himself from conviction, he has to find evidence the crime boss did it.

The day sophomore Waill Essa, enrolled in letters and sciences, was writing the film, he was listening to mysterious classical music. It drove him to write a twisted murder story, he said.

“It’s more of a serious drama mystery,” he said. “I keep it strictly dramatic so you can feel for the character.”

Case of the Campus Corpse — A twist on a 1950s film noir, it’s a murder mystery set in modern times with five characters who dress and act like they live in the ’50s. Among them is Tim, a detective and college student who’s being blackmailed by a fraternity. Those contradictions fuel the piece, said Alexander Hammer, the junior psychology major who’s writing and directing the film.

The idea for the film came to him just before he took a nap on McKeldin Mall. It exemplifies the absurdities in collegiate life, he said.

“Essentially, the overall theme is the cutthroat, competitive nature of college itself,” Hammer said.

Almond Joy — This mockumentary centers around a campus squirrel enthusiast who spends her time promoting squirrels and student activism for their preservation. But the student body isn’t receptive and in the end, it starts taking a toll on the student’s mental health.

Junior marketing major Belinda Shao, writer and director of the film, said the moral of the story is to accept the more eccentric people around us.

She also said the film used an exorbitant amount of peanuts, so if anyone’s seen squirrels gathered around a large pile of crushed nuts in the last few weeks, that’s thanks to her and her crew.

Algorithm — In this film, a young physicist goes back in time for one moment with his younger sister, who was killed in a car accident a few years ago.

Writer Jessica Esteves, a senior English major, said the idea for the film came to her one day during class.

“I wanted to write a film that people can connect to, because I feel like everybody has that one person that they wish they had a little bit more time with,” she said.

Non Sequitur — It’s a set of 10 to 12 comedy sketches (along the lines of sketch comedy group The Whitest Kids U’ Know) that are all offensive and absurdist.

Freshman economics major Hugh Monahan had tons of material from writing comedy for open mics in Baltimore, so he decided to put it to use, he said. Filming so far has been an adventure — to set up a scene, Monahan had to jump into a Dumpster.

“I hope they say, ‘What?’ at the end,” Monahan said.

The Maryland Filmmaker’s Club’s Winter Film Festival is at Hoff Theater on Friday. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the films start at 6 p.m.