Tomorrow's Spielbergs get a film festival of their
own
The recent
National Film Festival for Talented Youth showcased
movies by directors ranging in age from 9 to 21.
By Irene Svete
| Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the April 18, 2008
edition
SEATTLE - After spending his summer vacation
studying what causes conflict, eight-grader Angad
Singh decided to do something about it. He picked up
a camera.
The result was "One Light,"
a 22-minute movie in which he and 10 of his
Atlanta-area neighbors talk about who they are,
where they came from, and what they believe.
"A movie is something
everyone can enjoy," says Angad, an audience-award
winner at the recent National Film Festival for
Talented Youth (NFFTY). "It's something that
captures your senses and touches you on the inside."
Easy access to digital
technology has caused an explosion in filmmaking,
especially among kids who have grown up with it.
Organized by young filmmakers for young filmmakers,
NFFTY – pronounced "nifty" – offered 73 youth-made
films over three days with genres ranging from
documentary to animation to experimental to horror.
The youngest filmmaker is age 9.
"These are extremely
high-quality productions. If you saw them in a
theater, you wouldn't realize that they were made by
kids," says chief organizer Jesse Harris. The
festival's purpose was to showcase the diversity of
work being done by filmmakers under 21 and give them
a chance to connect with adults in the industry,
says the 22-year-old who, at 17, sunk his college
savings into his first film, "Living Life." The
feature scored theatrical release and distribution.
NFFTY cofounders Jocelyn R.C. and Kyle Seago, both
18, were veteran filmmakers before they even left
for college last fall.
Many of the directors have
been playing with the family camera since they were
toddlers. Carl Kadie of Bellevue, Wash., recalls his
12-year-old, Ben, storyboarding a commercial when he
was 5.
Others are newcomers.
Seattle's Justin
Amorratanasuchad, 18, was an avid skateboarder when
he and his friends began filming each other's feats
as a way to break into the pro circuit. "We'd watch
the professional skateboard videos, figure out the
angles, and copy what they were doing," he says.
Before long, moviemaking had replaced skateboarding
as a career goal.
Fortunately, the
opportunities for young moviemakers to distribute
their work are increasing – and not just through
YouTube and social networking sites like Facebook,
though teen-made films proliferate there.
Organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the
South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival are sponsoring
competitions for high-school-age filmmakers. For
example, Matthew Black, a 15-year-old moviemaker
from Kansas City, created his suspense short "The
Writer" in a week as part of the national Samsung
Fresh Films competition. Matt Lawrence of Ballard
High School's film and video program in Seattle says
shorts now have a real market in part because of the
growth in cable TV and home theaters.
Even more important,
filmmaking can give teens life skills to use in
their community and a chance to see themselves as
community leaders, whether they choose to pursue it
as a career or not, says Tracy Rector, executive
director of Longhouse Media and its Native Lens
program for young filmmakers.
Nick Clark, 18, and Cody
Cayou and Travis Tom, both 17, came into their
Native Lens project thinking they'd make a gangster
movie. Instead, they ended up investigating the
impact of Tesoro Petroleum's March Point refineries
on the lives and health of their families and
neighbors on the Swinomish Reservation north of
Seattle. The trio talked to tribal elders, health
officials, and even politicians in Washington, D.C.
In the process, their grades went up, they found new
confidence, and they began thinking about their
futures. All three teens have been offered paid
summer internships at the Smithsonian Institute's
Museum of the American Indian after graduation.
The public reaction to
their hour-long documentary, which has screened at
several US festivals, is still sinking in. "People
seem to like it," says Cody, in awe.
The upshot: "March Point"
has been picked up by PBS to air in November.
