Nearly four hours and 23 films after it began, the AHS Film Festival ended with the awarding of its top honor, the Jury Prize. The award went to the team of seniors Alex Galloway, Liam McGhee, Brian Coffman and Eddy Albright for their film “Last Interview,” which also received a number of other awards from the judges.
The Jury Prize, which is awarded to the festival’s best all-around film, is a source of pride for film students, who look to cash in their hard work for an award at the festival. This year’s winning film, “Last Interview,” is about a man who goes looking for a job after his sister, with whom he lives with, threatens to kick him out of the house. It then continues with the hilarious events that occur during the interview due to the protagonist’s previous experiences as a film action star.
“I didn’t expect to win, actually,” senior Alex Galloway said about his film. “I thought it would be a little bit out there for it to win Jury Prize.”
This award, however, is not the only judge of students’ achievement and learning in IB Film over the course of the year.
The festival, held on June 10 in the auditorium, also showcases the ingenuity of AHS IB Film students. In fact, the audience felt that the students truly outdid themselves with their films, showing almost no signs of immaturity, in addition to displaying sophisticated themes. There were a variety of films of all genres, including comedy, thriller and mystery films.
The festival was a lively event, filled with jokes by senior emcees Lance Miller and Kyle Rayo and IB Film teacher Alan Weintraut.
The films were judged by a panel of five members of the AHS community: English teacher Julia Hanneman, social studies teacher John Hawes, English teacher Bonnie Vining, English teacher Catherine Gibson and PTSA President Emily Slough.
Not only did the crew of each short film receive constructive criticism for their movies from judges at the festival’s conclusion, but they were also awarded a number of other awards by the judges. Even the audience voted, casting their programs as ballots after all the films were seen. The movie with the most votes won the Audience Choice award, while the movie with the second highest amount of votes won Audience Choice Runner-Up.
Unsurprisingly, “Indifference” was awarded the Audience Choice award.
“[I think] either Indifference or Love Always will win Jury Prize. Indifference showed how society can be so cruel and it had such a good ending,” senior Nick Vu said.
“Indifference,” created by juniors Bellal Hussain, Adeeba Rasoli, and Alex Davalos, was the first short movie to be showcased. It was the heart-wrenching story of a boy’s struggle with autism and the bullies who constantly tormented him at school while a bystander remained indifferent.
“It feels great [to win Audience Choice],” junior Bellal Hussain said. “It’s nice to see how everyone has support for us.”
