HHS Film Fest Fills Cinema Arts Centre
A near capacity crowd filled a Cinema Arts Centre theatre at last week's Huntington High School Film Festival. The fourth annual event showcased 25 short films ranging in length from about 30 seconds to 10-minutes.
Student-filmmakers were on hand along with classmates, family members and friends. This marked the second year that the Cinema Arts Centre has hosted the event and co-director Dylan Skolnick said the film festival is a "natural fit" for the community theatre.
Free popcorn was available to the audience, which after settling in was entertained by a variety of works, including stop motion, public service announcements, documentaries, art movement, short stories and silent films, plus several others.
"The film festival was a hit" said Heather Swan, a Huntington High School art teacher who has developed the popular video program. "The parents, students, and members of the community that filled the theatre were amazed at the quality of work displayed."
Students enrolled in Video I, Video II, Advanced Video Production and Video Portfolio courses showed their films. "It's really great and inspiring to see the immense talent that all film students at Huntington High School possess," said senior Daniel Moya, who is headed to film school at the University of Southern California. "To have the festival at the Cinema Arts Centre after a year of outstanding instruction from Mrs. Swan is just the icing on the cake."
In addition to Mr. Moya, the festival included films by students Melissa Rosenberg, Samantha Carroll, Ricky Hermer-Fried, Jessica Straub, Hailey Treanor, Mathew Weinschreider, Robbie Anzalone, Layne Nigro, Eli Goldman, Katie Nugent, Kira Bergman, John Reilly, Spencer Pashkin, Geoffrey Feinberg, Matt Binetti, Dylan Delgiudice, Max Polster, Tawsif Akber and Sara Lockwood.
The grand finale was a 10-minute college level short Rosenya production by Mr. Moya and Ms. Rosenberg, who is headed to Emerson College in Boston in the fall to study film, with an emphasis on post-production. "Clowns Are People, Too" was a provocative piece of work by the two seniors.
Some of the festival films can viewed by logging onto the Huntington School District website at www.hufsd.edu and clicking on the link for The Arts and then on the link for Videos. A DVD of the film festival is available for $10. To order a copy, send an e-mail to Mrs. Swan at hswan@hufsd.edu.
"I am so proud of all my video students," Mrs. Swan said.