By Samantha Huntington, Community Engagement Specialist
March 3, 2025
Saturday, February 22nd the Library held our annual Reel Short Teen Film Festival in partnership with Enzian Theater. This year marks a decade of celebrating the talent of young filmmakers! As part of the celebration Best in Show winners from years past were shown alongside this year’s official selections. If you didn’t make it to the screening, don’t worry; all official and virtual picks are available to watch right now!
Our Best in Show and Jury Honor winners gave us some exclusive insights into their films and inspirations.
Jury Honor for Storytelling: My Mother by Ava Parrulli
Q: What was your motivation for creating My Mother?
A: My motivation was to experiment with VFX and learn more about the process while being able to create an emotion triggering story. Not only that, but I wanted to create a piece as an homage to my mom, who I want to live forever.
Q: What do you hope people take away from your film?
A: I hope people take away the fact that our parents are important parts of our lives and that wanting them to live forever is a common thought. But I also want them to take away that something to do with Sci-Fi can be emotional and not always action packed and crazy. The genre is what you make it.
Q: What inspires your filmmaking?
A: I’m inspired by the movies and shows I grew up watching, but also my own emotions and fears. I think if you write about something with personal aspects, it has more of a chance to blossom into something so beautiful.
Explore more of Ava’s work on Instagram: @trixterflicks
Jury Honor for Effects: Agent 408 by Austin Johnson
Q: What was the process of creating Agent 408?
A: The original idea came from the error code 408, which is sometimes what can happen when a webpage takes too long to load. I thought of how it would be funny to make a film that had a slow pace, and right when you think something is going to happen, the film itself crashes. From there I just thought the numbers sounded like something like the numbers from the Hitman game series.
Q: What was the most challenging effect to pull off in this film?
A: The most challenging effect was probably the gun wiping effect. I drew an outline of the gun in a drawing software, then manually frame by frame overlayed it over the gun to make it look natural. I had to overlay two different clips, one with and one without the gun, to make the transition seamless.
Q: What inspires your filmmaking?
A: The creativity and passion to make what I want, as good as I want.
Jury Honor for Animation: Farmer’s Farm by Dakota Haughbrook & Everett Breakenridge
Watch the full video interview above!
Explore more of Dakota’s work on YouTube: @PritslBrook
Best in Show & Audience Choice: Cake for Breakfast by Owen McCourt
Watch the full video interview above!
Explore more of Owen’s work on Vimeo: Owen McCourt