Seen & Heard (3)

There in the second row, mere seats away from Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen and a row ahead of Paris Hilton, Maria Gigante and her husband anxiously waited to learn whether she’d be going home with a golden popcorn bucket. The Lakewood native and student filmmaker (pictured here with “Borat” co-star Ken Davitian) was one of two finalists vying for MTV’s Best Film on Campus award, which meant a trip to Los Angeles for the MTV Movie Awards June 3. Gigante’s short film “Girls Room,” a quirky tale of how a girl’s trip to the school bathroom leads to friendship, unfortunately didn’t snare the MTV prize — not that Gigante, who now lives in Chicago, seems too upset about it. “It was the best way to lose a competition, because I didn’t feel like I lost,” she says. “Just being out there, making the relationships, meeting the people that I did was award enough.”