Film Festival

Date: Columbus Day Weekend, October 9, 10, 11 at 7:30pm
Tickets: adults $5 / teens free
Location: Mountain Cinema in the Doctorow Center for the Arts, Rte. 23A, Village of Hunter, NY
Information: 845-246-1598 or 518-263-2002 (recorded information) or 518-263-4702 (during hours of operation)

The Ninth Annual Reel Teens Festival will be held on Columbus Day Weekend, October 9 - 11, 2009, at 7:30 each evening. The festival celebrating the creative intelligence of young people by screening award winning films and videos made by teenagers from across the United States and around the world has grown over the years to become the largest festival of its kind!

The 3 screenings, each showing different entries, will feature the 72 winners and runner ups from the 500 entries received for the festival competition. A panel of entertainment industry judges award prizes in 12 categories; Fiction, Short Fiction (under 10 minutes), Documentary, Short Documentary (under 10 minutes), News Magazine, Video Diary, Animation, Stop Motion Animation, Claymation, Visual Arts, Music Video, and PSA (Public Service Announcements). The winners will receive a cash prize, a certificate of achievement, and a gold statuette named 'Felix'. In addition, the audience will be able to cast a vote for their favorite at each screening, with an audience award statuette presented each evening.

The screenings are recommended for mature audiences only, young children will not be admitted. Content and language have not been edited, which gives the filmmakers the opportunity to express themselves freely and openly.

Filmmakers who attend the festival have the opportunity to talk with the audience after their videos are screened resulting in an open question and answer forum. Last year a number of entertainment industry professionals were in attendance making this section of the program quite enlightening.

Because more and more high schools and organizations are including filmmaking in their curriculum the festival is seeing the caliber of technical achievement increase each year as the age of those submitting entries gets younger and younger. This year an 11 year old girl from Bangladesh submitted a documentary about gypsies living on boats along a river. A 14 year old created a 1930's style adventure set in Egypt without leaving her school in California. 9 and 10 year old kids are creating stop motion animation pieces that make you smile. By the time these young people reach 17, 18 and 19, the quality of their story telling and their proficiency with the technical end of filmmaking is so tuned that their entries are professional quality. Newsweek magazine has recognized these kids and call them the "Speilberg Generation"

"There are programs on the web that can be downloaded at no cost, enabling young people to create editing suites wherever their computer is," Barry Kerr the festival director explains. "We at Reel Teens have opened a dialog with young filmmakers on the web as they experiment with the medium. They send us what they are working on and we suggest how they can improve it. We are able to put them in touch with editors, writers and producers who are happy to help them."

"Freedom to be able to express yourself is creating a multi-media revolution." Kerr continues. "By taking a camera in hand the youth of today are able to say things through their movies that they could never verbalize. This is only the beginning of what I consider to be an entertainment industry revolution. Because of our web site (www.reelteens.org) we are attracting films and videos from around the world. This year they received entries from Bangladesh, Croatia, Poland, the Netherlands, Kenya, China, England, Ireland, Wales, Spain, Denmark, Canada and from across the United States."

Two of the winners from the first Reel Teens Festival have entered the entertainment world and are making their mark. Marly Halpern-Glaser who won an award for comedy fiction has been hired by Warner Bros. to develop comedy programming for teens, and Colin Bannon who won the best fiction prize 3 times in row has written and directed his first feature film, "Love Conquers Paul" which is being shown at festivals throughout the United States.

Screenings at the festival start at 7:30 PM Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, October 9 -11. Admission to each screening will be free for teens and just $5 for adults. Tickets can be purchased at the theater on the evening of the festival or reserved by calling 845-246-1598. For more information and reservations please phone Reel Teens at 845-246-1598, or e-mail reelteens@webjogger.net. The Reel Teens Festival website is www.reelteens.org