Youth to show their films for free on Granada Theater’s big screen May 14
Published in the March 18-31, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Kim Bush
Kim Bush
When we started the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival, it was important for us in our mission statement to include an educational component. With the first festival taking place in 2004 in downtown Morgan Hill at the Granada Theater, the Community Playhouse and other venues, we showcased the films made by young people in the region at a special screening. That year, we also had Oscar-winning special effects artist John Bruno (“Terminator,” “True Lies,” “Titanic” and “The Abyss”) as our keynote speaker, and children and young students learned first-hand from him the tricks of the trade in making movie magic happen.
At every one of our film festivals since then, the keynote address is given by someone who has actual film-making experience. We don’t just bring in actors who talk about the glamor of their lives. We invite people who can educate our festival guests about certain aspects of film making — such as cinematography, special effects, costumes, music scoring, and screenwriting. This year, we’ve taken that element of education to the family level to introduce them to films and have kids be involved in making movies.
One of the things we’re doing at this year’s Poppy Jasper Film Festival is hosting a special Kids Day Thursday May 14 where we invite local children and families to bring us their videos and let us show them on the big screen just like we do with the juried films. If the kids might want to talk about their films with the audience, we’ll give them the opportunity to tell people about their experience in learning the art and craft of cinema. We believe that getting young people involved in the festival by having them show short films they made will empower them to embrace the process of film making and understand better how the visual arts work. We need the arts in our everyday lives, and hopefully, by starting out in filmmaking as youngsters, kids will have a great appreciation for films as they grow older.
If you’re interested in submitting a film for our Kids Day program, please send a good quality DVD to the Poppy Jasper Film Festival office at MHAT, 80 E. Second St. by April 15.
We are also encouraging all Morgan Hill schools to get involved in our Kids Day special showing by sending us films made by their students to be shown on the big screen. P.A. Walsh Elementary School has a partnership with the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, and we are working with Principal Teresa Sermersheim with the intent to show some of the short animation videos that her school’s children have prepared. We also hope to show some documentary videos of the various local schools made by local filmmaker Brian Garcia.
Festival organizer Bill Leaman is working on a film with the “benevolent pirate” Rich Firato of Morgan Hill that will celebrate the adventures of Captain Kidd. We hope to show this film at the launch of our festival with a special sneak-peek showing of it Tuesday May 12 at the Granada Theater.
This year, in celebration of children, we’ll also show the invited film “Madzilla” which was made in Chicago as a project for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. This short film features a young boy named Madison who has battled leukemia. Madison loves giant monster movies, especially the Japanese lizard Godzilla. He used Godzilla in his battle with cancer. So Dr. Martin Flynn, a friend of mine, got involved and wrote a screenplay which was used to make the film. Madison wakes up one morning as a giant green monster and stomps through the streets of Chicago, causing an uproar. Football player, coach and TV commentator Mike Ditka plays the city’s mayor, and real life Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel plays a taxi driver in the movie. It was a labor of love to create this special film project and we want to share it with our Poppy Jasper Film Festival audience Wednesday May 13.
We encourage parents to take their children to the Kids Day event and, after viewing the films, chat about the films and their stories afterward. Films can be a source of great conversation for families to discuss important issues about science, society, and the world. And at our film festival, we encourage children and teenagers who are interested in a potential career in movie making to meet our professional and independent filmmakers and learn from them how they got their education in cinema and what advice they might share.
Over the course of years that the Poppy Jasper has brought independent filmmakers from around the world to Morgan Hill, I have seen time and again how fascinated our local citizens are by the process of how films are made. Independent filmmakers want to learn new techniques and ideas in making movies, and that’s what brings many of them to our festival. This year we’ve arranged to have selected short films appear in Cinespots pre-shows, which are shown in cinemas across the country. We think that’s pretty exciting for the filmmakers. We encourage young people who want to explore their own storytelling abilities — through making short movies for an audience to enjoy — to share their videos with us so that we can show them on the big screen.
Kim Bush is a founding member of the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival. She wrote this guest column for Morgan Hill Life.
