On Friday, May 10, Westside is debuting their first film festival featuring projects created by Film and Literature students, students in the Warrior Television publication, and anyone interested in submitting their work. Senior Bram Sullivan, Film and Literature student, is involved in planning the film festival.

“[Film and Literature] is a new class and Mr. Moseley’s teaching it,” Sullivan said. “At the end of the year, you have a project, and you can either do an individual or group project. I wanted to do a group project and [planning the film festival] was one of the options. I thought it would be a lot more fun than writing an essay; I wanted to be part of the group.”

English Instructor, as well as Film and Literature teacher, Nathan Moseley, said the festival was created to showcase student work.

“At the beginning of last semester, I decided to do a film project with our new film and literature class,” Moseley said. “I just thought it’d be cool to showcase their work from beyond just the classroom because some of them are really good and put a lot of work into it.”

Sullivan said there were various roles given to the students involved in the planning committee.

“There’s a small group of us and we were given a budget,” Sullivan said. “I’m working on advertising some stuff, as well as fundraising, and some other members of the group are working on what cool stuff do we want to have at the event, and getting the word out about it.”

Sullivan said that planning the festival is mostly student lead, and the students involved are working on incorporating Westside alumni into the festival.

“There’s some [Westside alumni] we’ve reached out to that are actually in the film industry, and we’re trying to get them to come out and actually speak a little bit about what they do now,” Sullivan said. “There’s going to be awards for the films, and [the alumni] are going to be some of our judges.”

Senior Elyse Bartek, also in Film and Literature, said she chose to become involved in planning the festival because it was a new option.

“I chose [the option of planning the festival] because it was something different and new, and another way to apply myself to the school,” Bartek said.

Sullivan said they encourage any and all students to submit their films and listed ways in how to do so.

“We want to get some more students submitting films of their own,” Sullivan said. “The way you can do that is you can email them to my school email, or we have a twitter, called Westside Film Festival, and you could DM and ask us questions, or talk to Mr. Moseley if you’re interested in doing it.”

Bartek said she hopes the festival is well attended and successful.

“My hope is that we get [the festival] done, and we have people that come, and that it’s successful and have it carry on throughout the years,” Bartek said.

Similar to Bartek, Moseley hoped the festival will be successful, as well as expands in the future.

“This year, I just hope [the festival] happens, that it succeeds, and that we get people there,” Moseley said. “In future years, it’d be great to expand it to the whole district, other high schoolers, and just keep it as a high school film festival.”

The festival is free admission, and will be located in Westside’s little theater, beginning at 6:30 pm on Friday, May 10. If you have any questions regarding the festival or would like to submit your work, you can contact Sullivan at [email protected].