Foreign language students and aspiring film makers shine at film festivals
On December 28, 2017, the Annual Foreign Language Movie Festival was held in the second-floor auditorium from 9:00 am to 12:20 pm. Many students and teachers attended this three-hour long event – whether they were the filmmakers themselves, the friends of foreign language students, or simply those who got bored in study hall, many enjoyed watching the student works. This year, there were a total of 20 films from the six language classes, and awards were presented at the end of the event to recognize the best films, actors/actresses, accents, and posters.
Like previous years, student groups from French and Spanish classes worked hard for approximately one month to produce a film in their specific language. The winner of the Best French Actress Award, Karin Tan (11C), explained the time-consuming process of filming. “Our group has put in all the effort that we can into the project despite all the pressure from [other activities]. I personally, vomited and had a fever the night before filming my scene and editing the movie, but somehow nothing could stop us. My team was just so [supportive] and passionate [about] what they were doing, [and] it encouraged me to do the same, too.” The director of Spanish Best Film En Serio, Sean Tsou (9A) expressed similar sentiments and said, “[The filmmaking process] was pretty fun and exciting, to be honest. Everyone spent hours on it and sacrificed a lot of sleeping time. However, I am very proud of the outcome. I knew from the start that this team was going to create something, but when [we won Best Film] it was just surreal. All the hard work instantly paid off.” The winners of Best Film Award as well as the new Above and Beyond Award both received an extra 200 RMB per group for a nice dinner to enjoy together. This new award was given to the groups who may not have won the other awards but went “above and beyond” in getting great scenes outside of one’s comfort zone. Natalie Man (12B), an MC of the film festival, shared, “I really enjoyed this year’s foreign language movies. After being in the festival for three years and [serving as an MC] twice, I really feel like it keeps improving each year.”
Something completely new for this year’s Film Festival was Video Production class’s film competition held in the afternoon. The scope of this competition, compared to its foreign counterpart, is smaller in size—featuring only six films—but the level of professionalism was much higher. Since it is a class on how to make videos, the students are generally more experienced at filmmaking. As a nice surprise for the event, Mr. Patrick McCann, the class advisor, was able to bring in experts in the film industry as guest judges. “[I am] incredibly proud of the work my students put in,” said Mr. Mccann. “They made some fantastic films.” Similar to the Foreign Language festival, students were also awarded after all the movies were played and the judges made their votes. The awards and their respective winners were Best Script and Best Poster (Faces), Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director (Do I Know You), Best Cinematography and Best Editing (Indifference), and Best Actress (For You). Tiger Ko (11B), the director of Do I Know You, commented, “I honestly didn’t know I would win all three [awards] for this film, but from this production I developed a passion for filming and would like to produce more films in the future. I had a lot of fun working with my team and learned a lot about the [filmmaking process].”
From the many quality films that were shown today throughout the two film festivals, the creative ingenuity of SMIC students was definitely on display. Student and teachers hope the Foreign Language festival will continue its annual practice, and that the newly added Video Production competition will become a tradition here as well.
Featured Image – Awards table courtesy of Lannie Deng