A group of local high school students have transformed their life experiences into films and been awarded for their efforts.
The students enrolled in Española Valley High School’s television and film program may be just starting out in life, but combined, they have a lifetime of experiences to share with moviegoers. Many of the students received top honors in both the documentary and comedy categories, as well as several second- and third- place finishes, at the seventh annual Future Voices Youth Film and Photography Festival.
The festival will be held from 10 a.m. to noon March 25, at the Lensic Performance Center in Santa Fe.
Senior Angela Samayoa won first place for her submission, “Family Pottery” which details her family’s history of pottery making. Samayoa said she originally thought of the idea for the three-minute film while enrolled in the dual-credit program at Northern New Mexico College, but ultimately turned in something different.
However, the 18-year-old high school senior said she decided to finish the project for her television production class at the high school because she thought it was important to share her family’s tradition.
“My great-grandmother has done it (made pottery) since she was a little girl,” she said. “It feels good because it shows my family can do stuff and pass it down to the next generation.”
Española Valley High School TV production teacher Ellen Kaiper said the film festival is a great opportunity to dispel many of the negative stereotypes, which for the most part, portray the area’s youth as trouble-making or pregnant high school dropouts.
“It’s a chance for the rest of the state to see how good, how creative and how talented and amazing these kids are,” Kaiper said.
Students Maryssa Chavez, Sergio Villa Gomez, Dennis Suazo, Guadalupe Salinas and Chalice Rios claimed first place for “Cholo Family Counseling.”
The short film tells the poignant tale of an Española couple who must learn to cope with relationship difficulties stemming from the male character spending 11 years behind bars. Once he is released, the couple seeks counseling, hoping to reconcile their troubled union, but things take a turn for the worse, when it is revealed the couple’s child was fathered by the relationship counselor.
One of the film’s creators, 17-year-old junior Guadalupe Salinas, said she decided to sign up for the TV production class as a freshman, after seeing some of the movies produced by students who attended the class, at school assemblies.
“I would watch the videos and think ‘oh my god, I have so many good ideas,’” Salinas said. “Besides, me and my friends aren’t very camera shy, so we could really pull it off.”
Kaiper points out that in recent years, Española students have won more prizes than students at any other schools. She said she believes this string of successes can be attributed to several factors, including the strong family ties that exist throughout Española Valley.
“Over the years being connected to the culture here has given students a lot to say,” she said.
Kaiper refers to Samayoa’s “Family Pottery,” as an example of such strong family ties.
“The rest of the United States people don’t even see their grandparents,” she said. “Families are very strong here. There is a lot of respect for what families do.”
Besides strong family ties, Kaiper also credits the program’s top-notch equipment and professional mentors in helping secure the school’s continued success at the festival.
At least one of Kaiper’s former students has had the opportunity to use the skills he learned in her class to bring one of his creations to the silver screen. Diego Lopez, is now executive director of Hands Across Culture, an organization aimed at addressing the high rate of human service-related problems in Northern Santa Fe and Southern Rio Arriba counties.
A 1997 Española Valley High School graduate, Lopez co-wrote and co-directed, “Blaze You Out,” a full-length feature film. It’s about a young woman consumed by the underworld and her sister must find her before some killers do. He said the program was an important stepping stone in his life because it opened an avenue of creative expression.
“It was really instrumental because I think that class was an opportunity to express ourselves,” he said. “Whatever we wanted to do, she (Kaiper) fostered our creativity and we were able to run with our ideas and it provided a platform for us to get out what we wanted to say to the whole school,” he said.
The Future Voices Youth Film Festival started seven years ago as a collaboration with National Geographic and the Lensic Performing Arts Center. During the first year of the festival, organizers invited just four schools to participate. But that number would increase gradually, until three years ago, when organizers opened it to all New Mexico high schools.
All first place winners received a $300 cash award, second place winners earned $200 and third place entries received $100 cash prizes. The first place finisher for all nine photography categories received $50. Second and third place finishers in the photo competition did not received a cash prize.
Overall, this year, the competition received less entries than years past, according to Connie Schaekel Lensic’s director of community relations.
She said this year’s movie entries are up quite a bit from last year. This year, the competition received a whopping 116 entries, compared to just 80 the previous year. On the other hand, the festival received a paltry 150 photo submissions this year, compared to a record 500 photo entries last year.
Schaekel said she believes the drop in photo entries is a result of both organizers shifting the submission date from early March to the beginning of February and a monthly photo contest hosted by the Lensic. She said one of the main goals of the project is to get young people to explore their passion and tell their stories.
“It is their story — what are their lives like,” she said. “What are the problems teenagers face, teenage suicide, alcoholism being accepted by their peers …”
Other film and photography winners from Española include:
Documentary
• Second place: “Immigrant Family Experience” by Ana Derma, Evelyn Juarez and Naelly Muñoz
• Third place: “Losing a Parent” by Evangeline Marquez
Comedy
• Second Place: “Hipster Thanksgiving” by Andrea Chavez and Isaac Martinez
Public service
• Third place: “Rock on with your family” by Kiara Rael, Ray Padilla, AlexaRose Padilla and Josh Mondragon