With a chance to win a GoPro camera on the line, students, teachers and their family members of all ages gathered in the C.H Jones Auditorium at Holt High School to celebrate their achievements April 2 for the Wentzville Film Festival. 

Everyone was in a hustle and bustle to get everything ready for the students to feel special. When the student filmmakers walked into the high school, there was a red carpet rolled out for them to walk and pose on.

“Our main goal for tonight is to celebrate students and for everyone to see how awesome our kids are at Wentzville are and celebrate that with our community,” Amanda Moody said, who is a coordinator that has helped all three years of the film festival.

This year’s festival was themed “Be Scene” and the event was student-led from promotion to the production of the event. 

“Every year the kids kind of dictate what changes about it,” Moody said. “So I think we will have more students doing the promotional piece of it. And they push it because for the first time there is an animation section, just because we had a bunch of animation entries. So that’s just an example of how it’s grown.”

The night kicked off at 7 p.m. and the hosts Jace Nielsen, Dylan Soberg and Mason Wilbanks filled the room with happiness and laughter.

“Tonight is going to be a lot of fun, and we will definitely be having fun on stage,” Nielsen said.

For each category presented, the hosts had something arranged pertaining to the topic. The performances included was a kazoo band for the music category and lightning news for the news category.

Liberty was well represented as four filmmakers won in four different categories.

Sophomore Ianne Salvosa made a film in the Public Service Announcement (PSA) category called “Speaking Silver.” “Speaking Silver” was about awareness for hearing loss and deafness and telling their story. CLICK HERE to watch her film.

Senior Braden McMakin made a film for the story category called “Stained in Red,” which he was super passionate about. Although filming only took two school days to film, it took five months to edit. The film was about suicide prevention and really emphasized that you are not alone. To commemorate his film, he wore a red sweatshirt the night of the festival. CLICK HERE to watch his film.

Freshman Alex Alehult made a film in the instructional category called “Basketball” and was the only freshman that won from Liberty. His film was a compilation of videos that demonstrated him boosting the audience’s confidence of being able to play basketball. CLICK HERE to watch his film.

And last but not least sophomore Britney Thai with her film, “Mind and Heart over Wealth” categorized in the new animation category of the festival. Her film displayed that people should not be classified by their financial standing but by what is in their heart. She was really surprised to hear that she had won because she was not there the night of the festival. CLICK HERE to watch her film.

Liberty was not the only school very well represented at the festival. There were multiple winners from elementary schools. Included with the class films made, there were also some dreams displayed in addition to filmmaking. 

Fifth-grader Myleigh Turnipseed made a tutorial film about making homemade ravioli. But when she was interviewed, she explained a much deeper story than that. It turns out her grandpa featured in the video ran his own restaurant with his wife called Yacovelli’s and it was a family recipe.

Although she loves filming, she says she has a true passion for cooking and wants to be a chef when she grows up.

So no, the film festival isn’t just about students submitting films for recognition. There are many more stories to tell, it’s about much more than that. It’s about encouraging kids to be whatever they want to be because if you can dream it, you can do it.

CLICK HERE  To watch all the submissions from Liberty students.