As the academic year comes to a close, cinema students have submitted their films to festivals all across the country. One in particular is in Seattle and is screening three films from Point Park students.
Last year alone over, 12,000 people attended the festival and over 800 submitted. On April 23, Dominique Carino, Jeremy Passante, Garrett Kennell and Kevin Stiller will be flying out to NFFTY for the screenings of their own pieces.
The National Film Festival For Talented Youth (NFFTY), pronounced “Nifty,” is now the largest film festival for youth in the world.
Kennel was accepted into NFFTY for his Production 3 film in 2014 and decided to reapply with his senior thesis film “Milkman.”
“Being surrounded by people who are just like us but from all over the world and how excited everyone was about filmmaking in general,” Kennell said in an interview last Friday.
NFFTY provides a chance for young filmmakers to learn from one another and their mentors in the film community. All youth ages 24 and under are allowed to submit their films for the chance to be showcased.
The festival splits films up for screening by genre then the tone of each film and even further down to the themes of each films. There are categories such as LGBT that films can be put into.
Carino filmed a documentary titled “Diamonds in the rough” about a local family jewelry store and how they hand made all of their jewelry. She directed and produced the documentary.
After getting footage for about eight hours and sifting through to cut together a 15 minute piece, Carino decided to look for festivals to enter. “We are leaving April 23 and coming back the 27. We are going to go see the other two Point Park films while we are there and also see our own screening,” Carino said.
While the crews are in Seattle, they hope to visit local attractions and tour the city as well as attending as many festival events that they can.
Kevin Stiller, director of photography for “Milkman,” had to take large risks in order to create great shots for the movie.
“The last drone shot was an amazing moment. We had a camera mounted on a drone, and we just went for it,” Stiller said. “We had 20 minutes of sunlight left and the shot went off, and we see the shot happening in front of us.”
Stiller and Kennell are heading back to Seattle for the second time. There are small classes that take place as well as screenings of all movies from the beginning to end of the day.
“There are little classes that happen during the day where pretty big filmmakers come and contribute their time to teaching students about filmmaking,” Stiller said.
It creates an opportunity for the students attending the festival to have an open dialogue with major filmmakers in their field. There are chances for questions and lectures from key people such as James Foley, one of the directors of “House of Cards.”
