“Tonight, we are going to be looking at the best film productions that North Harford has to offer,” says the hosts of the second ever Hawk Handmade Film Festival. After the 3-month work period students had, there were a total of 41 films submitted and they were adjudicated by teacher Larissa Arist, Christle Henzel, Kaitlyn Hemling, John  Wojciechowski, Brian and Nancy Green, Brian Dougherty, and Christine Jestel, Jennifer Chandler.

     Student filmmakers could enter in multiple categories which included fiction, musical, nonfiction/documentary, PSA/ journalism, and lastly art and animation. Awards were given for the top two spots in each category, and also in the areas of best visual effects, best acting, most funny, most creative, and best overall.

     The first place winners in each category are as follows: fiction- senior Chloe Ward;  musical feature category-senior Grace Herron; documentary category- sophomore Mackenzie Scott;  PSA and journalism category- freshman Alexis Gott;  art and animation category- junior Ari Hite. The winner of the best overall feature film was Hite’s film Neighbors. Hite also took home the award for best visual effects and most creative.

     “This year’s film festival is gonna be pretty cool,” says one of the Film Festival hosts, Chloe Romm. The Festival filmed it separately, “so we can just put it out live, so that’ll have less issues technology wise.” Last year she said we “ran into an issue where there was a downfall in the broadcast at the end.” She added that “it’s a good thing we recorded it so everyone could see the end.” Since the Festival was broadcasted live, Romm says the audience could  “watch it in their pajamas but still be part of the school but not have to physically be there.”

     “I joined personally because my journalism teacher wanted all of us to make a podcast for the film festival,” says sophomore Espy Carter. The film consists of Carter and her friend “talking about the show Euphoria,” their thoughts about it, how they thought things were going to go and their thoughts on the actors and directors. 

    Carter chose Euphoria because she “really likes the show,” even though “there’s a lot of problems with it,” she finds this helps her “bond with her friend that [she] hasn’t seen in a while.” Carter says she thinks the film festival is a “really fun” idea, but she “wishes more people joined.” Carter says she “would still put something in” for the film festival even if her class didn’t do it.