New film festival leadership brings change

For the last two years, Niwot High School’s Education Foundation has hosted a spring festival to showcase the work of aspiring student filmmakers. But when the foundation announced that it would no longer be able to support the event, NHS teachers Jim Asmus and Jason Watkins teamed up to ensure the show would go on.

In the process of taking over the festival, Asmus and Watkins made several changes, including renaming the event the St. Vrain Valley Student Film Festival. “That was because I’m a CDC (Career Development Center) teacher as well, and it was my CDC student organization that was involved,” Asmus said, explaining he wanted a more inclusive title since both the NHS and CDC chapters of the Colorado Creative Careers Student Organization sponsored the event.

As a result of the new leadership, this year’s event, which was held on May 6, was even more student-centered. Students designed the t-shirts and generated marketing ideas. Alyna Atilano, Marina Boiko and Daniel Boiko designed the medals and they were engraved by the CDC engineering tech lab. “It was really cool because so much of that we were able to keep in house and involved other people and schools,” Asmus said.

Another change was in the structure of the film category awards. “Instead of doing a judges’ award and a people’s award,” Asmus explained, “we did a first and second place award that was 50 percent judges’ and 50 percent people’s vote. In the past we had a lot of films win both categories, and we wanted to spread the awards around a little bit. The students, with my help, came up with the idea of going first and second place.”

The festival did continue to award a Best of the Fest prize, and this year’s winner was Fairview High School junior Celia Tewey for her animated film, Duck and Cover, which used old audio recordings of nuclear war public service announcements. “She did a nice job and she’s such an exceptional kid,” Asmus said of Tewey, who had won category awards at the previous two festivals.

Asmus was also quick to thank community members Gary Keschel and Stuart Snow, who stepped in to help with technical aspects of the event. Keschel designed the website where entries were submitted and Snow designed the new online voting system using google forms and google sheets.

Asmus also applauded Watkins’s student-led theater tech crew. “They are amazing. The kids all know what to do.”

The winners of the 2017 St. Vrain Valley Student Student Film Festival are:

Action: First place, Leif Cooperman (Niwot); Second place, Julia Curd (Niwot)

Documentary: First place, Aamuro Kanda (Niwot); Second place, Lauren Closson (Westview Middle)

Comedy: First place, Brant Smith (Fairview); Second place Aamuro Kanda (Niwot)

Experimental: First place, Luke Siegert (Fairview); Second place Anton Vayedjian and Will Sooter (Fairview)

Drama: First place, Jackson Cloud (Niwot); Second place, Celia Tewey (Fairview)

Animation: First place, Celia Tewey (Fairview); Second place, Brennen Davis (Skyline)

Best of the Fest: Celia Tewey (Fairview).