Arlene Hernandez, a senior at Northridge Academy, recently won “Best overall Highschool Film” for the Making Moves that Matter Film Festival, the largest student film festival on the west coast. There are a few simple rules for films submitted:
- They must be three minutes and 30 seconds or less in length
- They must cover a topic that matters (addiction, gun-violence, etc.)
Through Cinematography Club, Northridge Academy has been producing films for the Making Movies that Matter (MMTM) festival for the past two years. Cinematography Club primarily has worked on two films, Mirror of Me and At Least you Tried. While both of these films received a nomination, neither were able to win a category in the face of multiple other competitive, more affluent schools. However, Hernandez, a veteran of the club, produced a solo film titled Butterfly. Her entry not only won a category, but won the entire festival for high school submissions. What makes this more impressive was the fact that it was all filmed in just a single day, by one person. This went toe-to-toe against submissions from other schools which had over six months to produce their film, and up to 20 people involved in production, including professional film teachers sent out by the district. In fact, there were over 150 submissions from 39 schools this year.
The club, last year, received professional film teachers. But this year, we lost the “lottery” that was used to select which schools received the limited teaching resources the District had. This makes Hernandez’s victory even more incredible, given that she did not have time, money, or really any resources. It was simply the power of her storytelling and her own skill that guided her film to victory.
The films can be viewed the following films mentioned here: Mirror of Me, At Least you Tried, and Butterfly
