General suggestions?

[Swagato]

Hi everyone. This is cross-posted from another post made in the Humanities -> Film Studies thread. I figured some of the content applies here too. Please read the following and give me your opinions.

Brief intro:

I'm an international student from a very average background. Middle class family in third world country, etc. I got here on my own merits. I had excellent SAT/SAT2 (1490 SAT, 800 SAT II English) scores. Always been excellent at anything to do with the English language or film. Graduated from a very small college [Coe College, Iowa] with an English major. I'll admit my first two years were absolutely miserable. Massive cultural shift, switching streams [math -> psych -> econ -> business -> english], just so happened to have an ill-advised advisor as well. Not the partying kind or anything. Just made some pretty horrible choices. First two years were bad – next two years were salvage work. I kept working at English because I loved it, and that's pretty much what I did best. Graduating GPA is nowhere near anything to make me feel safe about graduate admissions. Junior and senior years spent doing massive salvage work. Bad news in short: Crap GPA: 2.36. Final year GPA: 3.40 in both semesters.

Plus points:

Junior and senior year academic work = consistently much better. Extra courseloads every semester. Independent work completed with two professors [one in film, one on semiotics in visual advertising]. Highest level (offered at Coe) courses taken both in English and in Business and had A's all through. Completed two independent studies in lieu of a senior thesis in film [Postmodernism in the works of Wong Kar-wai // Christian Metz on Wong Kar-wai]. I have three professors, all high up in their departments (2 Eng 1 Bus) who know me and my case very intimately. They know where I come from, why my transcript is not the full story, and the calibre of my work. I am completely confident that they will do their best when it comes to LOR's.

Summary:

Crap GPA. Excellent work in film [Coe does not offer Film major] and English. Multiple independent projects in film. Junior/senior year = much better. LOR's = no worries there. GRE: Will take in October. Very confident about 1400+ score.

So here's the rub. I badly want to get into programs that will allow me to go directly for the PhD. Now I'm not quite sure how this works. My friend graduated with Chemistry and was accepted to the PhD program at Iowa State directly. He says it is possible for BA -> PhD admissions in his field. My research hasn't really indicated that to be possible for film. Most places require me to apply to the MA first. The reason I'm balking at that is finances. I noticed only Emory offering a full-tuition MA program. Everywhere else it isn't so rosy. Some even state clearly that funding for MA is not a guarantee. Obviously I intend to pursue the PhD. I need help figuring out where, though. I have a few choices. U. Chicago, U. Iowa, U. Wisconsin, Columbia, Emory, U. Indiana. But those are not set in stone and I'd love it if any of you can help me make the right decisions.

Despite my GPA giving me night chills about being tossed out due to not meeting minimum Cum. GPA requirements, I want to believe when I'm told graduate committees look at the entire application. My GPA is the one [very bad] weak point in my application. I'm confident about everything else. But I need to choose the right places because finances are a major factor. And I'm also worried that places might do a pre-screening based on GPA alone. If that happens, my application would be tossed out without anyone ever getting a chance to read my statement or my LOR's.