Youth Film is a day-long festival of film and video created by local youth. This event accepts film and video entries from throughout the region by young people from 5 -18 years old. Youth Film 2014 was presented at the Academy of Music Theatre on Sat. Feb. 22 starting at noon. Brian Foote is now the director of Arts Council going on one month. Brian said about his history was with the council, ”Previous to being the director, I was art administrative for one year and 3 months.”

As for his stand on the Youth Film he said, “I think its great way to motivate people to participate in the festival.” Brian further said, “There is no winner, no prize. It’s a community participated event. If you are 7 years old, you can submit and go watch with your friends.” As for what films were there, Brian said, “It’s a wide range of films and depends on the direction of the film class.” This all sounds like a very interesting insight into Youth Film as well as a good endorsement for becoming involved in the whole event. Last year’s festival had Neil Adams entered an short film called A Living Hell which was a zombie film.

Next, we have some insight from a person or two who actually has been in the Youth Film as a participant. Monte Belmonte certainly had some to give us from him and his boys being in it. The reason they decided to make a film so they could be part of the event was “My boys make films every weekend. I, as their father, encouraged them to spend a little more time on one to make it really great. Hence the title The Really Great Cinderella Movie.” This film, obviously a fairy tale, came together after “about 6 months of very sporadic shooting and editing.” A video camera was used to make this along with iMovie, which is editing software from Apple.

Mr. Belmonte and his boys actually went to the event and watched their film along with other films being shown. It looks like Brian Foote was right about it “being a great way to motivate people to participate in the arts at early age.”  When Monte Belmonte was asked if he and boys do this Youth Film Festival again as participants the answer to that was yes.

Photo by Mike Licht via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons BY 2.0.