Student filmmakers will get the chance to rub shoulders with movie industry insiders this fall during the Gold Coast International Film Festival’s first ever Young Filmmakers Program.
“We’re here to encourage more student filmmakers and just really tap into all the kids who are creating short films,” said Caroline Sorokoff, associate director of the Gold Coast Arts Center. “We want too encourage them to get involved and enable them to have their work shown on a big screen.”
Any child from kindergarten to grade 12 can submit a film no longer than five minutes to the contest free of charge. All films must be PG in content and can be shot on any format, such as digital video or a smart phone.
The festival also requires that the film be a high resolution, such as 1920 x 1080. Films can be submitted at www.goldfilmfestival.org/submissions until Oct. 1.
The program’s winning films will be screened at the 2015 festival, which will run from Nov. 9 through Nov. 15, 2015.
While festival organizers were researching how other Long Island film festivals were doing youth competitions, they found that students were doing more than just narrative films, so any genre of film will be accepted. If the films are TV Commercials, they can be no more than two minutes long and music videos have to be of original music only.
Sorokoff said the festival has accepted films from students in the past, but that this year — the festival’s fifth anniversary — will be the first it has its own category for student filmmakers.
She said the Gold Coast Arts Center tries to add new elements to the festival every year, and that the young filmmakers competition is one the festival’s organizers have been planning for a while. She said the arts center has been involved in arts education outreach at various schools in the area, and the arts center employees have learned the schools have students producing films on their own.
“This year just seemed like the perfect time,” Sorokoff said. “We reached out to a lot of arts teachers and arts faculty — whether that be film faculty or performing arts faculty — throughout the region.”
When submitting the film, the filmmaker must also write a synopsis of their film and what school they are from on a Young Filmmaker Submission Form from the center.
There will be three age groups for judging — Kindergarten through sixth graders, seventh graders through ninth graders and 10th graders through 12 graders.
The films will be judged by a series of professional film directors, screenwriters, producers, Long Island University film professors and film critics.
Sorokoff said the festival organizers aren’t sure how many of the films they will award with a screening yet, as they do not know how many submissions they will get.
She said some film festivals that have done student competitions may get 25 submissions their first year, and 300 submissions five years later.
“It’s not going to be one winner, it’s not going to be five winners — we need to look at how many entries we get,” Sorokoff said.
The winners will also have the opportunity to meet many different people in the film industry who come to the Gold Coast film festival every year. Past attendees have included actor Hugh Grant and director Baz Luhrmann.
“It’s not only a great opportunity to bring family and friends to see something you made on the big screen,” Sorokoff said. “They also get the chance to talk to people in the film industry and to ask for advice and make contacts.”
