Aside from the district wide festival on April 2 at Holt High School, Liberty had an opportunity to show off their videos before the big event. It is a way for students to bring out their creativity and ideas, as well as getting feedback for their videos.

If students had submitted a video for Liberty’s Film Festival, they were invited to a pizza party to celebrate their creation. The party took place on March 15 during the grab n’ go break. Senior Braden McMakin won a Go Pro camera at the party. 

“The purpose of the pizza party is to celebrate those Liberty students who invested time and energy into making a film this year,” Ms. Oliva said. “We have so many creative students, and the film festival is a great opportunity for our students to show off their talents as student creators. The pizza party celebrates our student creators.”

In total, there were 34 films that were submitted to the WSD Film Festival. One of the films was produced by McMakin, who has been participating in the film festival since it started.

“My film is about suicide awareness,‘Stained in Red’ which is a short story I wrote that revolves around the theme that there will always be someone who notices your absence, even though it might not be everyone, the life that one person has can affect the lives of others,” McMakin said.

“This film is something I wanted to portray to raise suicide awareness and really make it known. Through this color, the impact that one student has on one’s school can be seen in more than black and white.”

McMakin has continued to participate in the festival because he wants to test his video skills.

Some students participated for the experience while others did it for an assignment in class.  Junior Sarah Rowley participated because it was an assignment for her class in AP Lang. 

“My video is about education and how it can be different, how it can impact students in a positive way,” Rowley said. This is her first year entering in the festival and she is excited to be a part of the district wide festival.

Liberty will be highly represented at the festival with the numerous videos that were submitted. Ms. Oliva was impressed with the amount of participation and effort that students went through to make these videos.

“I was very surprised at the huge number of films that were submitted to the film festival this year. We received nearly double the number of films compared to past years,” Ms. Oliva said. “We received the most number of films in the animation category which is a new category this year. Overall, I was thrilled that so many students participated in this year’s festival.”

To view all LHS Film Festival films competing in the WSD Film Festival here; https://sites.google.com/wsdr4students.org/lhslibrary/liberty-film-festival.