The 13th Hotchkiss Film Festival, a showcase of twenty-one student films from boarding and Round Square schools, was held on Saturday, May 25. Coordinated by Film Club heads Angela Li ’24 and Trey Ramirez ’26, the program included a variety of submissions from horror shorts and love stories to documentaries and experimental shorts.
This year, the festival received a record-high of ninety submissions from eighteen schools, including Andover, Athenian, Deerfield, Exeter, Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, Governor’s, Sacred Heart Greenwich, Williston, and two Round Square schools: the Craigshouse in Chile and the Lawrence School in India.
Ms. Ann Villano, instructor in film, Li, and Ramirez chose 21 short films for the final program.
Filmmakers Mr. Josh Zeman and Mr. Tiller Russell ’92, and Ms. Emily Drummer, Professor of Art and Art History at Amherst College, were invited by the Film Club to select winners for Grand Jury Prize, Best Storytelling, Best Cinematography, and Best Super Short awards. For Mr. Russell, it was his first visit back to campus since his graduation.
Mr. Russell and Mr. Zeman visited upper-level film classes earlier in the week to share their experiences working in the film industry. Li said, “It’s just very interesting to learn from individuals who have filmmaking experience and who can provide us with a lot of insight and advice. It also means a lot that high school films can be judged at such a high level, and speaks to the quality of the film festival.”
The festival included films directed by three students from Hotchkiss: Li, William Yee ’25, and Sophie Perkel ’24.
Li’s short In Sleep, explores the liminal state between sleep and waking. Li’s film was awarded a Scholastic Connecticut Art Region Silver Key last December. Li also submitted a light-hearted film, sNO!w, about her friend, Quisha Lee ’24, who, being from Hong Kong, had never seen snow.
Yee’s Unreel Exposure, a horror short featuring Henry Shattuck ’25, won the prize for Best Storytelling. What Yee began as a minute-long assignment turned into a four-minute long piece that Yee called a “creepy and mysterious twist.”
“Though it didn’t come out exactly as I planned,” Yee said, “the process gave me a better look at how professional films are made. I have so much respect for film artists and the work they do.”
Perkel’s film follows the experience of a student, played by Max Mudry ’26, who is lured to go cruising in the middle of the night.
“The film I made for the festival, titled The Nights of Venus, is based on a script I wrote for homework when given the prompt, ‘write dialogue between two people who have never met,’” Perkel said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun with a film than with this one.”
The judges were most impressed with two films, Be Mime by Taia Reitz from the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in New York City and Mortality by Marcela Burger from Craighouse. They awarded the Grand Jury Prize to both filmmakers.
Best Cinematography went to Kevin Chen from Andover for his short, sunlit, portraying a couple’s troubled relationship.
Best Super Short, for films less than three minutes, was awarded to Lila Caruso from Sacred HeartcGreenwich for her film, Infrared, an experimental film featuring modern dancers.
