By Alex Nnabue ’18

The third annual Sherwood Student Film Festival will be held in the Ertzman from 7:30 to 9 p.m. on April 28. The festival is sponsored by English teacher Christiane Lock and will take place in conjunction  with the annual art show with junior Leo Trieu serving as the announcer. Inspired by the final film project that is required in Lock’s film class, the festival has grown to give students across MCPS an opportunity to showcase their acting, directing, editing, and storytelling skills to a larger audience.

“The film festival is an opportunity for students to display their amazing talent in storytelling, camerawork, and editing which incorporates many different skills,” said Lock.

While most of the submitted films are comedies, other categories include narratives,  documentaries, and animations. The film festival’s number of participants has grown over the years and this year’s got over forty submissions with three-fourths of them coming from outside of Sherwood.

A panel of students and teachers judge the movies and determine eight finalists in each category. The final eight are then sent to judges outside of Sherwood, that include a local actor and artist along with an AFI theater film professional, to rank as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and honorable mention. The judges are given a rubric for each category and focus on the storytelling techniques alongside camerawork and cinematography. The majority of films are under ten minutes and some can be as short as two minutes. Many films, such as animations, require a depth of skills and take over a month to make.

At the festival, four to five films from each category will be presented. All participants are notified if their film has been selected to be shown or possibly win prior to the event. First to third place winners are awarded with cash prizes and a student-designed tee shirt along with a certificate, while fourth and fifth places receive honorable mentions. The film club, whose President and Vice President are juniors Megan Proctor and Lydia Velasquez, raised money for the event selling turkey grams and including advertisements in the program.It is encouraged that students attend and bring their family and friends to watch the outstanding work and get a good laugh from the comedy category.