The ninth annual Calabasas High School Student Film Festival was hosted in the Performing Arts and Education Center at 7 p.m. on May 10. During this year’s festival, the CHS Film Club conducted the festival’s submission process online and allowed students outside of Calabasas to send in their films.
Though the event was similar to other years in essence, many improvements were made to this year’s Film Festival. Not only was this year the first festival to be run by a student producer, but it was also the first year that the festival was open to areas outside of CHS. The festival took place in the PAEC building rather than the multi-purpose room, where previous festivals were held. These changes were due to junior Jared Harris, who aspired to make a student-oriented film festival of his own.
“I wanted to get the festival more student-involved and student-oriented,” said Jared Harris. “Ms. Selke took the position as advisor and I took over as Director of the festival. We changed things up this year and plan on expanding even further for next year’s Student Film Festival.”
The CHS film festival had over 30 films submitted from high school students in the Los Angeles area. The winners of this year’s festival were as follows: junior Kazden Watkins won best screenplay with Instrument: A Coming Of Age, senior Nader Montamed won best cinematography and best editing for Dreamworks, senior Adam Feldman won best original score with his piece in Checks and Balances, junior Basim Shaktah won best actor for his part in Byrd’s Nest, junior Taylor Snook won best actress for her part in Concrete Wall, junior Nicholas Hayes won best director for his film Byrd’s Nest, senior Henry Gerse won best experimental film for The Car Wash Kid, community member Matt LaCorte won best action film for BullyBashing, freshman Daniel and junior Ben Glassman won best documentary for their film Trailerpark and best comedy for their film Powder and senior Eddie Lucitt won best drama for Any Minute Now. The winners from each category were announced via sealed envelope and received awards that resembled those from the Oscars. After the opening ceremony, Director Jared Harris and Film Club President junior Brandon Tehrani welcomed director and special guest Michael Greenspan, who made a speech about his origins in filmmaking and gave advice to the young filmmakers.
