District hosted fourth annual Film Fest

Aparnna Manoj, Managing Editor|May 29, 2018

Photo by Aparnna Manoj

Photo illustration of student filming.

The film festival team hosted a red carpet event on May 24 to show off the films students created, from elementary to high school. The annual LISD Film Festival is a contest started by Instructional Technology Facilitator Jayne Germany to give students in the district a platform and authentic audience to show off the video projects they have created.

“There is a man, Marco Torres, and he worked in the San Fernando Valley,” Germany said. “There were Latino kids there, and he started a film club with them and teaches them filming concepts. They produce films that showcase their culture and that lifts the culture up. I wanted to do that for our district so the kids that want a voice, have a voice. So they can speak from where ever in their world they are coming from.”

The submission process starts in late September and goes into early April. There are different categories including Public Service Announcement (PSA), Documentary/Cultural, Instructional, Story, Stop Motion/ Animation and Persuasion. Junior Jacob Vu entered the contest for the first time with a PSA about texting and driving. The elementary and middle school level contests are judged by administrators within the district and for the high school level contest, professional industry judges are brought in to view the films.

“I wanted to enter the contest before, but I never really had a film I was passionate about to enter,” Vu said. “But the PSA I entered, I felt it was a good competitor to some of the PSAs I’ve seen, because I feel like it was more creative take to the other films I’ve seen.”

There were around 460 submissions this year, and after the judging process, the coordinators ended with around 100 awards: honorable mentions, ‘rising star’ award for pre-k and kindergarten, and first, second, and third place for middle and high school in different categories.

“We have the different categories in order to give the most amount of awards possible,” Germany said. “Because if you have four or five categories, you can only give four to five first places, versus one first place. We have so many excellent films, that I don’t think we can only give out one or two first place awards.”