St. Margaret’s Winter Film Festival was an extraordinary showcase of the creative works of cinematic arts students in both Upper and Middle School. More than 200 students, parents and friends attended the event in Hurlbut Theater. 

Among the more than 20 films featured at the film festival were a few firsts for the cinematic arts department:

· Coco Johnson enlisted the help of 19 Lower School students for her film Harvey, introducing many grade 1 students at St. Margaret’s to a behind-the-scenes look at how films are made. Many of the Lower School students attended the film festival to see themselves on the big screen.

· Charlotte Quintanar created a 9-minute documentary titled Bee the Solution, a lengthy project that involved flying to London last summer to interview experts on bees, as well as using a specialty probe lens to film her own B-roll inside bee hives at a local apiary.

· For the first time, a film student wrote, directed, edited and composed the music for their own film. Riley Harrison’s film Brotherhood featured his own film score, and received mentorship from professional film composer Adam Cohen. 

· Emma Evanson digitized hours of old footage and audio recordings for her documentary Music Man, chronicling the musical life of her great-grandfather.

“Every film production is an opportunity to learn and grow as an artist,” St. Margaret’s film teacher Karen Bennett said. “I am incredibly proud of all of our filmmakers for going above and beyond to capture the BEST performance, get the MOST cinematic footage, and go out on a limb to tell the most simple story in the most unexpected way.”

The Winter Film Festival attendees could vote for Audience Choice Award winners. Best Upper School Film went to Kat Dubrow and Coco Johnson for their dark comedy New Year’s Resurrection. Best Middle School Film went to Emma Kuy and Sienna Powers for their film For Sale based on the Shel Silverstein poem. 

You can view all the Winter Film Festival submissions by clicking here.