A CALL FOR ENTRIES!

Student Voices Matter Here!

Well, 2020 has brought a global pandemic, massive wildfires, catastrophic flooding, political power grabs, explosions, uprisings, and massive street protests. In the USA we’ve even had murder hornets! We can try to make jokes about it but COVID-19 has brought great loss to us all. 

What else is happening in our mask-wearing quarantined worlds? The UK’s got Brexit, a possible second Scottish independence referendum, and perhaps a unification of the Republic of Ireland with Northern Ireland. The US is facing a chaotic election with active voter suppression and disenfranchisement efforts, and adults behaving very badly. We’ve got wars, civil conflicts, and environmental disasters. And that’s just a very small part of the world. 

Without a doubt, our lives – and our worlds – have changed for all, whether you’re an infant, teen, parent, or educator. What’s happening in your world? The Bridge Film Festival wants to know...and see. 

The Bridge Film Festival (BFF), founded in 2000, provides a voice for students attending Quaker schools and Quaker Meetings worldwide. BFF invites creative and socially conscious students to produce films that focus on messages through a Quaker lens. Listen to what acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns says about us. Read about last year’s winners. 

There are four categories for telling stories: Narrative, Documentary, New Media, and Public Service Announcement (PSAs). The Narrative, Documentary, and New Media entries must be ten minutes or less in length and PSAs run 30 or 60 seconds. The deadline to submit is March 12, 2021. The judging and screenings will air online globally in the Spring of 2021. 

Here’s how it works: There are no costs to participate. Advisors can work with individual students, clubs, and classes to create ideas, scripts, and films. Read the criteria and complete your entry form here. 

What stories, current events, life experiences will inspire your students to make and submit a film to the 2021 Bridge Film Festival? We invite you to listen to your students and to galvanize them to share their voices! Quaker schools and Quaker Meetings are found throughout the world. Will you join us in sharing your students’ voices during this extraordinary year in these remarkable times? 

A New Decade for the Bridge Film Festival

Let Student Film Speak in Your School!

The Bridge Film Festival concept was simple, give students a venue to exchange ideas of conscience via the medium of film. The platform is built on an international network of Friends schools and Meetings that share Quaker values and celebrate regional and cultural differences.

The Festival was started with a grant from the Friends Council on Education and matching funds from the Brooklyn Friends School Parent Association. Since 2000, it has been principally sponsored by Brooklyn Friends School.

During the first decade of the Festival, films were mailed in on videotape and eventually DVD. The submissions were reviewed and finalists selected for a screening event. The annual events consisted of filmmaking workshops, dinner, screenings, celebrity speakers, and live judging.

The advent of YouTube and Google applications in the second decade of the Festival allowed entries to be uploaded and submitted through “The Cloud.”  This evolution created an opportunity for students to share their messages of concern to audiences worldwide via the BFF website. As always, entries are free of charge and open to any student attending a Friends school, camp, or Meeting.

From the very first, these student films challenged the commitment to diversity in our schools and tackled meaningful subjects including learning differences, bullying, equality, environmental, and social justice issues. Although the world is ever-changing, our dedication to these issues remains steadfast.

Though fundamentally a student film festival, the influence of a faculty advisor should not be under-appreciated, and as such is a requirement for entry into the BFF. The Festival holds in high regard the collaboration between students and teachers inherent in Friends school pedagogy.

As we continue teaching our students to think critically, we also need to teach them how to effectively communicate their ideas in the evolving digital age. Thus communication and media literacy inclusion in the curriculum is essential to the Bridge Film Festival mission.

Going forward into our 3rd decade, it is our hope that Friends schools and Meetings will continue to submit original works and create their own Bridge Film Festival collections in order to expand the reach of our student voices. Let student films speak!

Instant Oatmeal Filmmaking

Andy Cohen

I will be presenting an afternoon Bridge Film Festival workshop and an evening BFF screening event at this year's FCE-FAHE conference on Friday June 13, 2014 at Haverford College, Haverford, PA.  Sorry students, but this conference is for educators involved in Friends education only.

The "Instant Oatmeal Filmmaking" workshop will challenge participants to work in teams to make films reflecting Quaker values in action based on BFF criteria.  After a brief review of the rules, each team will pick a testimony out of hat and be given a camera and 60 minutes to brainstorm and film the movie.  Editing will be done "in camera."  Below is an example film from a previous workshop:

Visual Arts Teacher Peer Network 2009 at Pendle Hill 

FCE-FAHE triennial conference brings together educators from friends schools under the umbrella of the Friends Council on Education and Friends Association of Higher Education.  The first time I attended this conference was fifteen years ago at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.  It was also the first year of the film festival and with Brooklyn Friends School's blessing, I took the opportunity to participate in the conference and promote the BFF.  I'll never forget it.  There was a plenary session presented by four distinguished Quaker historians covering the four centuries of Quaker history.  In the middle of the 18th century there was a tornado warning issued so the entire conference had to go and sit in the basement.

This year's conference may not be as dramatic, but I'm sure there will be much to learn and relationships to build.  Most of us are looking forward to a well-earned summer break but I encourage all of my colleagues to consider attending this important and fun conference.

Surf's Up 

Here is a link to a website with copyright information that I have found useful, from Fair Use Tube .

Video Clip of Week

Each week I look through the Featured Channels list on the BFF YouTube channel and feature one video.  If you would like your Quaker educational institution's YouTube channel included in the Featured Channels list, simply send me an email.

This week's video is from Carolina Friends School: 

Upper School students use mobile canvassing to get out the vote

Animation Class Gets Moving

A Brooklyn Friends Middle School animation class is producing a public service announcement about childhood obesity for entry into this year's Bridge Film Festival.  Based on research by the students and information from Michele Obama's, "Let's Move" initiative, a script was written.  One student was selected to be the narrator and voiced-over the script.  Segments of the script were then assigned to members of the class to animate.  Once the scenes have been animated they will be edited together with the sound track.  The software applications used for this production are: Google Docs, GarageBand, Toon Boom Studio, iMovie.

Listen to the Sound Track