Film students win awards at the Montclair Film Festival

This year, Fallbrook High School film students submitted multiple movies to the 2021 Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey, and four of those films won in the "Emerging Filmmakers" category.

The Montclair Film Festival is a large festival on the East Coast that normally attracts more than 15,000 attendees, all eager to watch the films from up-and-coming filmmakers from all over the world. The films that are shown during the festival are handpicked by a group of judges. Notable advisory board members include J.J. Abrams, Stephen Colbert, Abigail Disney, Emma Freud, Laura Linney and Jon Stewart.

After learning about the Montclair film festival, FHS film teacher George Herring was determined to have the students submit films, but he did not know what to expect. When the winners were announced, Herring was ecstatic to hear about the four different awards that his students had won.

"I wanted the students to work towards something, and the Montclair Film Festival was the perfect fit," said Herring. "Many bigshots are featured at the festival; it was a good goal to shoot for."

This year, the festival featured a special category called "My COVID life." This stood out to Herring because it would allow the students to create a film without any filmmaking equipment, just their cell phones. The 2020-2021 school year had been unlike any other, and many of the students in the film department struggled because they did not have access to the filmmaking equipment. The "My COVID life" category allowed the students to film themselves with their cellphones from home.

Three of the four films that won were entered in the "My COVID life" category. Award winners from this category include senior Elliot Chisholm-Reyes, senior Skyler Garcia, and freshman Taylor Christenson. There were six awards given in this category, and FHS students took half of them.

"The three winning COVID stories were all very different," said Herring. "Elliot created a deep dive into internet subcultures as a method for coping with the isolation of COVID; Skyler leveraged his savvy CGI skills to turn COVID into a menacing, otherworldly creature lurking outside and inside his home, and Taylor made use of clever camera angles and framing to show how COVID is both restrictive and lonely."

When Christenson realized that she had won for her film "Isolation," she said that she was extremely surprised.

"I was very shocked; I didn't really believe it at first because I'm only a freshman and I've never done anything like this before," said Christenson.

A film from FHS took the highly coveted Grand Jury Prize for Narrative filmmaking, and this award went to senior Adam Rodarte with his film "In These Streets."

"In These Streets" addressed police brutality and racial injustice, a topic Rodarte and his team were passionate about. Actor Jonathan Bermudez played the main character who had lost loved ones killed by police.

"This summer was an important one, with the murder of George Floyd and the racial injustice that came to light this summer, which impacted my team and me very hard," said Bermudez. "We wanted to show the story of the family members of the victims, whose voices are often unheard."

Rodarte spent a total of six weeks writing, planning, filming, and editing the film. After realizing that he had won the Grand Jury Prize, he had an emotional reaction.

"Honestly, I cried during my break at work because it was such a big step forward to something I've been dreaming of since I was little," he said.

"In These Streets" actor Jordan Aguilar was also taken aback when he heard the news that the film had won the Grand Jury Prize.

"I was shocked," said Aguilar. "I never doubted us for one second, but for it to actually happen was amazing."

Rodarte said he felt very honored to win the Grand Jury Prize award, and he is planning to continue studying film and he wants to become a director in the future.

In 2018, Rodarte was also the driving force in the effort to reactivate the film department at Fallbrook High. He petitioned the school, collected signatures, and convinced the school to restart the program.

The success of many FHS film students at the Montclair Film Festival has inspired Herring, and he is excited to see what happens next. The students have submitted 25 different films to festivals in San Diego, and Herring hopes the students will continue to push themselves.

"Winning these awards had helped to grow the confidence of the students in so many ways," said Herring. "They're believing in themselves and their ability to achieve great things, even as students."

"We are so grateful to Nancy Heins-Glaser for telling us about the Montclair Film Festival, and we are also very grateful for the school board for supporting us. Without them, we wouldn't have gotten this far," said Herring. "The school is funding our trip to New Jersey to attend the Montclair Film Festival in person, and we are so thankful for the support."

The students would also like to thank George Herring for his constant support, for believing in them, and for giving them a platform to make great things.