Picture this, the school bell rings and you’re late to class because you’re busy editing your next movie!
Teen filmmakers will showcase their cutting-edge work this weekend as the D.C. Independent Film Forum hosts its annual High School Film Competition. The contest is happening on Saturday at the Miracle Theatre on Barracks Row in Southeast and on Sunday at the Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market in Northeast.
“Just over a decade ago we realized there was incredible work coming out of high schools from dedicated young people interested in film,” Executive Director Deirdre Evans-Pritchard told WTOP. “We started including it in our main festival, then we realized it was growing bigger, the films were getting more interesting, higher in quality, so we started a standalone high-school film festival, which for the first time this year has moved into two days.”
The competition is open to filmmakers from all over the world, then a trio of students from the D.C. area narrow them down, including Mady Waldman of Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
“We get submissions, this year we got around 150, over that probably,” Waldman said. “We get them through a website called Film Freeway. We have to review each and every film. We have some criteria that we use to narrow down which films we can put in the festival because we can only put 15 to 20 in the festival final cut. … We get a lot of different genres of films, some animated, some documentary, some short narrative films.”
Sa’kiya Nicholas, a senior at Oxon Hill High School in Maryland, was also one of the curators.
“We really wanted to put more emphasis on story quality than production quality,” Nicholas said. “We wanted to spotlight people who had a good story, even if they didn’t have good production quality resources to work with. … If it’s a documentary, is it an engaging topic, does it get across the point it’s trying to get across, cinematography, are the visuals engaging? Stuff like that.”
Evans-Pritchard said one genre in particular is booming for young creatives.
“The thing that stuck out to me is that four or five years ago there was almost nobody doing animation and now they are doing extraordinarily good animation, really impressive,” Evans-Pritchard said. “We have several of those this year, which is very creative. … To do an animation you have to have incredible patience, so I’m so impressed by what is being produced on the animation front. These young people are really showing they can do it.”
This year’s lineup includes “Through Fire” by Wyatt Thompson of Viewpoint School in California.
“It’s a great documentary that follows three teenagers who struggle with addiction and their mental health,” Waldman said. “One teenager is a teenage girl struggling with an eating disorder, another one is struggling with substance abuse and I believe the third teenager may also be substance abuse. It’s just a touching picture of the lives of these three kids who are so young but are struggling with these incredibly heavy issues.”
Another standout film is “Dean’s List” by Kennedy Reid of Savannah Arts Academy in Georgia.
“I thought it had a really interesting story,” Nicholas said. “It basically follows this student who gets into this really prestigious school. … The students are competing with each other in this ranking system, but this new student figures out that something is wrong with the school. I’m not gonna go into too much detail because spoilers, but it ends up being a really interesting story, it’s really well-made, the acting is super good, I really enjoyed watching it.”
John Monaco of Duke Ellington School of the Arts will screen his film “Black Care.”
“There’s this local Black barbershop in my community called Smitty’s Barber Shop,” Monaco said. “The documentary follows Herman ‘Smitty’ Smith, he’s been the owner for over 50 years, so the documentary captures what it means to the Falls Church community. … When I found out I made it I was over the moon, really excited.”
He said it’s going to be amazing watching his movie on a big screen with an audience munching popcorn.
“I can’t even imagine,” Monaco said. “I’m inviting everybody from the barbershop. It’ll be great for everybody to see it.”
Which Hollywood movies are inspiring this new generation of filmmakers?
“The first movie that came to mind was ‘Nope’ by Jordan Peele,” Nicholas said. “I don’t even really like horror movies that much, but that specific movie I really, really enjoyed.”
“Anything by Tyler Perry or Spike Lee,” Monaco said. “I love ‘Do the Right Thing’ and all the ‘Madea’ movies, too.”
“I love Greta Gerwig, anything from her,” Waldman said. “Probably my favorite film from her is ‘Lady Bird.'”
Listen to our full conversation here.
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