In order to share the movies and shorts created by the film club and other students at the high school, Souderton’s fourth annual film fest was held on May 10, in the auditorium.
The annual film fest takes submissions from Souderton students, and provides an event for those films to be shown for the community to see.
According to film production teacher Alicia Simpson, the event has only grown over the past four years.
“We are going to have a lot more submissions, so the festival has now become more selective,” Simpson said. “So if you are selected for the fest your film will play, and that is kind of how real world film festivals work. We should have between 30 and 40 [movies] most likely.”
The film fest began with a red carpet walk-in for the student filmmakers and audience, followed by about an hour and a half of movies, broken up by an intermission.
The festival included entries from a variety of genres, from documentaries to comedies to horrors.
“This year, I am actually able to branch it off into genres, so we will have a narrative drama, narrative comedy and then a narrative thriller slash suspense category,” Simpson said. “I also get documentaries, I get shorts, so anything under three minutes, I’ll put in its own category.”
Much of the behind the scenes set up for the film fest was done by senior Leila Rhodes.
“I have been reaching out to new businesses than we have in the past, and more clubs within the school to get it more connected,” Rhodes said. “Internally, this year with the addition of the film production classes, I have been helping a lot of students produce their films that are going to end up in the festival as well.”
According to Rhodes, she also has to obtain raffle baskets from businesses in the community in order to hold a raffle during the event.
The film fest also presented awards for several different categories at the conclusion of the festival.
“We send out the submissions to a bunch of alumni, and we also have friends that work within the community that watch the films, give feedback and vote on which they prefer in each category. Then we also have superlatives that people will win, like best actor, best script and stuff like that,” Rhodes said.
According to Simpson, this variety in genre is one of the best things about the film fest.
“We have had some really serious topics, like covering mental health, which is awesome, or we have had really funny comedies about my podcaster being stolen,” Simpson said. “It is a very wide range.”
One of these comedies, “Speed Dating,” was written and produced by junior Kayla Fierle.
“I started off with a couple ideas that I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something that would involve a lot of my friends and I wanted to have a cast of multiple people,” Fierle said.
According to Fierle, filming with friends was something she knew she wanted to do, but was also a gift and a curse.
“It did take a very long time to film because everyone was having a good time, but it kind of made it hard,” Fierle said, “But I think that made the experience pretty fun.”
“Speed Dating,” a short comedy about a man encountering a hired killer during a speed dating session, ended up winning the award for best comedy.
Meanwhile, the non-fiction award was taken home by senior Carter Stoudt.
Stoudt’s film, “Everything,” was a collection of footage and photos throughout his life, aiming to document his journey through high school and life.
“I combined all of my footage that I have in all of my possession as a filmmaker,” Stoudt said. “Starting with my childhood to kind of show that, I’ve always been doing this, and kind of my evolution, and all of my friends that made it possible for me to do what I do. I couldn’t do anything without my friends, and it was a big homage to filmmaking as a student and also high school.”
Stoudt also stressed the community aspect of filmmaking, and wanted to make it known that “he could not have done it” without his friends.
