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Last week, our school community came out to watch two and a half hours of films created by my 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. We packed the theatre with close to 400 people for our 2nd annual film festival. I love teaching this film literacy class because we get to show off what middle school students are truly capable of. The one comment I heard over and over again from parents was how impressed they were with the quality of the student films, and how well-developed and engaging the plots were.

My students put a lot of work and time into carefully planning their stories and writing their scripts. It took almost four months to create these films. It’s demanding to ask middle school students to stay with a project for that long. Creating a short film with a clear, well-developed plot is a tough process. All the students who completed their films should be extremely proud.

We also surpassed our fund-raising goal. We raised over $1,800 dollars this year through donations and concession sales. After we donated $500 to the American Film Institute, we have $1,300 left over to buy new equipment for next year. Here’s one of the films shown at the festival, Clone for Life:

To see more student films check out our class website, Watch Out! Over the next week we will be posting all the student films created in the last four months. Thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out and make our 2nd annual film festival a success. Let’s do it again next year!