Bridge Film Festival Morphs With the Times

by Jeffrey Stanley   Every year since its founding in the spring of 2000, the Bridge Film Festival, created by BFS video and animation teacher and Media Services Director Andy Cohen, has showcased work from Friends schools around the country, and increasingly from around the world. This year's 13th annual screening event will be held on April 5th at BFS. Shown in the BFS meetinghouse will be ten of the top-judged films from 27 entries. These represent student films from four countries, 12 schools, one Quaker meeting and one summer arts camp.  Ten are narratives, six are documentaries, six are new media creations, and five are public service announcements.  The festival's online judges, not affiliated with BFS, are currently evaluating the entries. Andy has kept the festival versatile and dynamic over the years, changing with the times. He has increased outreach to schools, and embraced various production media that have evolved over the past decade. First came the switch from film to video, then to digital video. Now, the festival is increasingly embracing the innovative delivery methods for the entries to reach wider audiences beyond the April 5th screening event at BFS.  First came Youtube and the blogosphere; these days, those options go without saying. Starting this year, nominees and winners will be announced via the Judges' Choice Awards, a ceremony that will be simulcast live. The free event will be held in the Walton Center auditorium at the George School in Newtown, PA on April 24th at 2pm. It will also be streamed live on the web as one of the Friends Council on Education's 80th anniversary celebratory endeavors.  Andy describes the event as a cross between the Oscars and the Independent Spirit Awards.  Guest hosts will present awards to the top three nominees in each category and show scenes from each nominee. The top Spirit of the Festival award will go to the entry that best reflects the festival's mission to explore and illustrate Quaker values of acceptance, community and social action. Among this year's entries are the straight-talking documentary Pill Popper Generation, created by students at the Woolman Semester School in California.  The short is a frank look at teens who take prescription medications to deal with depression, ADD and ADHD, and how they feel about their diagnoses and treatments.  Their attitudes range from highly positive, to grateful, to resentment at feeling misdiagnosed and overmedicated by their physicians and parents.  "I really wish I was not given so much medication and given a lot more tools," laments one student. From Brummana High School, a Friends school in Brummana, Lebanon, comes The Journey of George, a fictional narrative about refugees and intolerance, complete with a moving, O. Henry twist at the climax. A new media entry from the William Penn Charter School in Pennsylvania features a compilation of computer-animated shorts created collaboratively by groups of students using improvisational theatre exercises. The Balloon, a public service announcement created by middle school students at Carolina Friends School in North Carolina, conveys without a word of dialogue the message that helping others is a great way to help yourself. All 27 entries are currently available for public viewing on the Bridge Film Festival Youtube channel, and as a new way to give the movies exposure, Friends schools and meetings around the world are encouraged to hold their own customized 2012 Bridge Film Festival fundraising screenings.  Such events must be scheduled for  prior to the awards ceremony, they must only show selections from this year's entries (though not necessarily all 27 of them), they must sell tickets, and all proceeds from ticket sales must go to a charity to be selected by the Bridge Film Festival. Full details on the festival, the Judges Choice Awards, the Youtube channel, and instructions for holding customized Bridge Film Festival screenings can be found athttp://thebridgefilmfestival.blogspot.com/2012/03/2012-entries-are-here.html   Tickets to the BFS Screening Event on Thursday, April 5th, are $3 and concessions will be sold. Proceeds benefit Art Start.