The Reel Youth Film Festival, on tour to communities in B.C. including Sechelt and Gibsons, offers a rare glimpse into the unknown - the minds of teenagers.
Apparently, it can be a scary place full of bullies and bulimia. It can also be an inspiring one, reflecting a kinder, better world, free of date embarrassment, cigarette smoking and disappearing children.A youth panel of judges sifted through the 200 submissions from kids aged 19 and under; each submission was evaluated for many elements including technical merit and message. In each community on the festival's tour, organizers Mark Vonesch and Erica Kohn were careful to include a high percentage of locally-made films in the program.
Of the 24 films shown in Gibsons last Saturday night, seven were from the three local high schools and five were imaginative, claymation shorts from the young students of Ecole du Pacifique, the French language school in Sechelt. Such one-minute vig-nettes as The Strong Man in which a clay figure triumphantly rolls a boulder up a hill, and Uranus Attacks in which a kitten is caught in the claw of an alien spaceship, display a lively imagination at work. Granted, these under twelve-year-olds have been assisted by adults, but their voices ring true.
The feature film Hung Up made by high school students -a combination of the Acting 11/12 and TV classes of Elphinstone Secondary School -also rings true and bristles with conflict. The high school soap opera was complete with fickle heroine, jealous lover and attempted suicide. The film ends with a pronouncement from an enigmatic character at a bus stop. She tells the heroine: "You are a victim of your own construct." Indeed, a rival to daytime TV.
How to Screw Up a Date by Pender Harbour Secondary School students was a comic hit. Some sample tricks: forget your wallet or make rude noises until your date slaps you.A film that elicited varying reactions from the audience, Cerebral Defect, proved to be a secret laboratory genre flick put together by Chatelech students Alana Levy Kall and Angela Popp. While some found it hilarious, others found it to be downright weird. Yet it was well made, and frightening - as frightening as the film submission from Colombia. One of the most powerful films in the festival, Just Another City is set in the poorer regions of Bogota and contrasts the vibrant culture of its people with the dark forces of authority. The same kids that practise their anti-establishment rap one day may quietly disappear into the back of a truck one night in a so-called social cleansing.There were no surprises when the audiences at both locations, Gibsons and Sechelt, voted for their choice of best local film. In Gibsons, they voted for the Elphi film, Hung Up, and in Sechelt for the Chat film, Cerebral Defect. In the category of best overall film, Just Another City rated highly on the scorecards of both towns. Also rated favourably on the basis of best story and best comedy was a Chat student film, Eric, produced by Alex Simkins. A cardboard figure called Eric is invested with human powers. In this twist on a classic Frankenstein story, Eric pulls out an illicit duct tape knife and does away with a female student. He must then be crushed by his mad inventor.More audience choice results can be seen at www.reelyouth.ca.
