Edward Bowen is on a twosemester tour of the east coast. During his tour, he plans to visit a total of 16 schools along the coast to showcase his collage of Italian short films. His goal? To break the "spaghetti-and-meatball," "Marioand- Luigi" image of Italy.

Bowen, who is originally from Virginia, got into the business of filmmaking his junior year of college, when he decided to respond to an advertisement in his school newspaper for study abroad in Italy. He knew no Italian at the time, but applied for the program anyway and won a grant to spend the summer in the country.

This Wednesday, it was Colby's turn on the itinerary to see Bowen's collection of short films that he had put together of Italy. Titled "Italy's Young Talent," the showcase gave students in attendance the chance to watch 7 films, ranging in run-time from four minutes to half an hour.

With a small library of Italian independent films in his ownership, Bowen has been able to display a different sampling of films at each host school, depending on the nature of the event as well as the restrictions and guidelines the school places on him (he noted that he was very pleased with the "free reign" that Colby gave him in choosing which films to show on Wednesday).

A creator of short films himself, Bowen both admires the craft and understands how difficult it is to get short films out to the public. One of the greatest obstacles, he commented, is that film festivals usually devote only a small portion of the festival to short films and they are almost always left with the worst time slot. By screening these films at colleges in the United States, Bowen hopes to "give an American audience to aspiring directors who young students probably wouldn't be exposed to otherwise."

Bowen's exposure to Italy in college and his love of film inspired him to turn his interest into a career. He hopes his presentation will inspire other people "to think in a different way both about Italian film and Italy, itself."