Young Filmmakers Shine at Festival

The next generation of Long Island filmmakers had the opportunity to screen their work for the Suffolk County Film Commission at the fifth annual First Exposure Student Film Festival hosted by the Cinema Arts Centre on Sunday. 

The festival featured 15 of the best short narrative, documentary, and animated films created by Suffolk high school students chosen from a pool of over 200 submissions.  The Suffolk Film Commission, a quasi-governmental organization of professional film industry professionals that promote film production in Suffolk County, selected the films based upon originality, quality, and content. 

Dylan Skolnick, Suffolk Film Commission member and Cinema Arts Center Co-Director, said he was pleasantly surprised.

“At first I thought, ‘Oh, are there going to be a lot of bad films’ but no, there were so many good films and really talented young film makers,” he said.

Highlights of the festival were two gripping psycho-thrillers, "Ailment" and "Careful with that Ax" and a PSA on the grave effects of bullying called "Every Seven Minutes."  

A range of genres were represented including documentary, various types of animation, and comedy. 

Huntington high school senior David Lillienstein directed and edited “Walk Through Hell,” a five minute stop-motion film of a stick figure battling infernal obstacles across the skin of a teenage girl, based on the lyrics to the indie band Say Anything song by the same name.  Although he says it took him three days of drawing and erasing to shoot the two minute film, he says that stop-motion is still his favorite technique.

“You can do a lot of creative things with it,” he said.

East Islip High School senior Dylan Polis created the claymation film "Philip and John" in which the escalating absurdist conflict between two claymation figures is cut short by a large hand.    

"It takes a ridiculous amount of time.  I spent a good two months trying to get the film together.  You get the camera, you take a picture, you move it a little bit, then you take a picture-- when it comes to making a six minute long video it ends up being like seven hours worth of footage," he said.

The Suffolk County Film Commission started the student film festival five years ago as an offshoot of the Five Towns College Media Arts Show to give high school filmmakers their own spotlight.  This is the first year the festival was hosted at the Cinema Arts Centre. 

“We’re really pleased to be directing this show.  We’ve always had a long commitment to community and promoting local filmmaking so it’s just natural to have this showcase for Long Island high school filmmakers,” said Skolnick. 

All students participanting in the festival received a certificate and a DVD compilation of all 15 films.