Niagara Falls High School students to show off short films at Saturday film festival
Moriah DeLorenzo loves creating videos and stories, but she never had the chance to create her own short film before this year. Niagara Falls High School students will be showcased at the Grey Area Film Festival, June 13 at the Capitol Theater, which is the brainchild of filmmaker Justin Gilmore. The festival allows students from any school to display their cinematic techniques and have their work shown. Students aim for a five-to-seven-minute runtime, with some shorts being as short as three minutes and others as long as 10. The topics in the shorts range from grief, suicide awareness, and decision-making to being about a kidnapping and a slasher. Gilmore, a filmmaker with a sports background, hopes the festival will inspire students to pursue their dreams and inspire them further in filmmaking.
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Moriah DeLorenzo loves creating videos and stories, but she never had the chance to create her own short film before this year.
The Niagara Falls High School 10th-grader is one of many students who will get their creations screened for the Grey Area Film Festival, happening at 6 p.m. June 13 at the Capitol Theater. The brainchild of Niagara Falls native and filmmaker Justin Gilmore, any school student can display their cinematic techniques and have their work shown.
“I always liked movies since I was little,” DeLorenzo said. “I never expected something I made would be shown at that scale.”
A filmmaker with a sports background, Gilmore was behind the 11-part documentary series “Victory Formation,” available on Amazon Prime Video, chronicling a season of Canisius High School football. He also helped film the most recent Super Bowl, contributed to the SLAM Film Festival during the NBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis, and filmed a mental health panel with NFL players Darren Waller and Marcus Smith.
Gilmore already had a relationship with Niagara Falls Superintendent Mark Laurrie, previously helping bring in NFL players for sports camps. When he reached out to Laurrie, he wanted to work with all kinds of students, not just those in the media program.
“(Making cinematic pieces) was something kids aren’t exposed to,” Gilmore said. “I wanted to encourage that.”
The preproduction process started in March with storyboarding, script writing, and previsualization, with film shoots taking place in April. At least seven shorts will be shown as part of the festival.
“Getting something out of your head into the world is a bit of a process,” Gilmore said, with the students meant to learn about different filmmaking techniques, their classmates, and themselves. “This gives them a chance to boost their self-esteem and work harder in the classroom.”
While Gilmore wanted students to aim for a five-to-seven-minute runtime, some of the shorts ended up as short as three minutes and others as long as 10. The topics in the shorts range from grief, suicide awareness, and decision-making to being about a kidnapping and a slasher.
DeLorenzo’s short film centers on finding hope in difficult situations. She had made shorter videos before, but nothing of this quality before.
“I had a great time filming it,” DeLorenzo said, whose cousin and grandmother appear in her short. “I’m learning to be more flexible and understanding, so it came to be a great experience.”
Another film, made by cousins ninth-grader Tramire Peterson, 10th-grader Tereion Robinson, and friend 11th-grader Darryl Harris, is an autobiographical story. It is about how kids not doing well in school work to change their ways after a friend gets shot.
“At first it was hard, recording something and making it serious,” Robinson said, as he and Peterson would get nervous in front of the camera. “It made me more confident in myself.”
Gilmore hopes to inspire students to pursue their dreams. If this does not lead to further filmmaking, it can at least be a doorway to whatever their goal is.
“The sky is the limit,” Gilmore said. “They can say I brought something from my brain to life and got shown in this theater.”
Peterson, Robinson and DeLorenzo are all excited that their works can be shown this way, saying this experience could push them further into filmmaking.
“If we get the attention we need, we could be in other people’s films or TV shows,” Peterson said.
“I could see myself doing this again,” DeLorenzo said. “It was a lot of work and a lot of fun.”
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the festival will go on until 9 p.m., with a Q&A taking place after each film is shown. Formal attire is expected.