Winners of the 3rd Annual LFNY Short Film Festival receive their prize.
Friday May 10th marked the 3rd annual Short Film Festival at the Lycée Français de New York, presented by M. Lacroix and M. Samulski. Demonstrating the passion for filmmaking of various LFNY students in short films lasting less than ten minutes, the film festival grown in terms of the amount of films submitted and the quality of those films. Following that trend, this year’s festival did not disappoint, although the amount of attendees somewhat did. Although some parents and many students, supporting their friends who had submitted films or simply curious, did attend, it would seem that school is not the most popular place to be on a Friday afternoon on a beautiful spring day – something to be thought of for next year.
Eleven films covering various different themes were presented, submitted by individuals or groups of students ranging from 7th to 12th grades. A jury of eleven members was present in order to establish the three best films. Among the jury were students from 7th, 11th, and 12th grades as well as certain faculty members including M. Rey, Mme Ozon, and Mme Simon. The jury also included people from outside of the Lycée community such as Muriel Guidoni, the audiovisual attaché of the French Embassy in New York as well as a short movies and documentaries filmmaker, Catherine Sorba. Finally, thanks to the creation of a partnership between the LFNY and the Lincoln Center Film Society, Rose Kuo, Executive Director of the Film Society, agreed to come and preside over the jury and present the awards to the winners.
Gift cards
The jury had a difficult task. All of the films had interesting elements, but three stood out. First, a heartwarming short documentary produced by two Quatrième students clearly touched the jury and won third place. Home, one of the submissions produced by Elyssa K and Gabriella Von E, two Quatrième students, was a compilation of interviews of various people in which the two girls asked what they thought “home” was. Some answers were very moving, and it was interesting to see different perspectives on the question, which is one that we might not ask ourselves consciously. The jury also certainly recognized the courage that it takes to go up to people on the street and ask them such a question, and thus awarded them third place, offering both girls a $50 gift card to AMC movie theaters to split between them. Congratulations to both of them!
Second place went to a very different type of short film. A modern interpretation of the classic children’s story Alice in Wonderland, this film of the same title was a stop motion depicting Alice’s journey throughout Wonderland, portrayed by a map. Clarisse G of 11th grade, producer of the film, said: “at first, I had created the film as an art project in which I had to create something original using a map. After I put the stop motion together, I decided on a whim to submit it to the film festival.” The modern portrayal of this classic tale was clearly appreciated by the jury, and they awarded Clarisse with a $100 gift card to AMC movie theaters.
Bringing food to life
Finally, one film clearly stood out more than others for the jury: a collaboration between Première students Pierre H and Theo Le S Food Doodle won the first prize for its original designs all represented on a plate using various fruits, vegetables, and candy. The idea was original and well executed, and the entire audience was charmed. One might ask how they got the idea – it was in fact a post on the humorous social media website 9gag that got their attention, and made them want to create their own images using food; they then took it a step further and created a stop motion film in order to bring them to life, using their own original ideas as well as two from the post. The idea was clearly successful, and Pierre and Theo won tickets to the premiere of the French film festival “Rendez-vous with French Cinema”.
This year was not the first time that Pierre and Theo had either collaborated on a film or even won (their other stop motion A Shoe’s Dream won the film festival in 2012), and they are currently collaborating on a short film called Obsession. When asked about how he got into filmmaking, Pierre said “I started when I met Theo. We made our first stop motion a few years ago, and worked well together, so we have worked on a lot of projects since then.” Congratulations to both of them, and we can be sure to see them at the next film festival and in the future.
Other notable films were There’s No Way Out of Here, produced by Benjamin K and Tuscany F, as well as films that touch on issues that students deal with every day at school. Indeed, students saw Max V and Liam R direct student traffic in the stairs in their movie Congestion, and Edouard D, Louis A, and Leonardo P portrayed student daydreams in their movie Life of a Student. Anybody who makes a film will tell you – it’s hard. However, despite the difficulty of the task, the film festival encourages whoever ventures into filmmaking to submit their creations next year. It’s a great way to showcase passion and creativity.
About the Author :
Andrea is a Y12 student (Terminale ES) at the Lycée Francais de New York. It is her 5th year there. She is the news editor of the student publication The Lynx and passionate about history, economics, and tennis.