PPL Announces 2012 Student Film & Video Festival Selections

Twenty-five short films have been selected as part of the 2012 Princeton Student Film and Video Festival July 18 and 19 at .

Admission is free and screenings will begin at 7 p.m. both nights.

“We received 102 entries this year and were really impressed with the high quality of the work,” said Susan Conlon, librarian and festival director. “The films are inspired, imaginative and reflect that the filmmakers are serious about developing their visual and technical craft aswell as the art of good storytelling.”

The selected works are by high school and college students from the Princeton area, throughout the United States and beyond.

Local area high school filmmakers whose works were selected include Princeton Day School students Charlie Guarino and Ben Weiner (“Kill Casual”) and Gabi Romagnoli (“Lost in Translation”).

Films by area post-high school filmmakers include:

• “Forbidden Fruit” by Travis Maiuro
• “Lost in Franklin County: Schools and Taxes in Rural Georgia” by David Quinn and Robert Mitchell’s who attend Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs 
• “Night | Watch | Man” by Princeton native and Bard College student Sam Cutler-Kreutz
• “Out of the Basement, ” by brothers Sam and Bob Venanzi, Temple University students and Princeton High School alumni
• “Perhaps Never”  by Mercer County Community College student Melanie Ng
• “Riptide” by Tim O’Connor from Princeton Junction, a recent Vassar College graduate who will attend graduate school at Columbia University
• “two years, five months & six days” by Pennington resident and Middlebury College student Hannah Epstein

“There is an emphasis on local filmmakers, but we include films from all over because youth benefit both from sharing broad perspectives as well as recognizing universal ideas,” Conlon said.

The festival will include seven international films:

• “Homemade” by Britt Raes (Belgium); 
• “InrealTime” by Manuel Ferrer Hernandez (Spain)
• “Remains” by Riley Leung (Hong King)
• “Shellshock” by John Corcoran (Ireland)
• “Soeng”  by Ho Tak Lam (Hong Kong)
• “Ted the Troll” by Emily Parker (U.K.)
• “UNARTE” by Andreia Dobrota (Romania)

The festival will include drama, documentary, animation, music video, personal narrative, abstract, parody, comedy and its first-ever musical, “I Don’t Know, Alaska!, by New York University student Dave Scala.

Many of the area filmmakers plan on attending the festival to introduce their films and answer questions from the audience. 

A selection of the festival entries will be part of the Artist Visions Film Festival in Lambertville on Saturday, July 21.

The festival is intended for teen and adult viewers.