Ninth grader Silje Morse and 10th grader Jackson Pearson had a full weekend at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival. It involved workshops, watching films (including their own on the big screen) and lots of mentorship. Needless to say, they were tired on the late February day they returned to Wrangell.
After chugging an energy drink, Morse said the trip was fun, but she’s exhausted.
“It was also fun watching people’s movies up on the big screen, especially our own,” she said. “And there was this one claymation film that was really funny,”
The claymation was called Egoland. It was about two mountaineers trying to climb to the top of a mountain.
“The one guy was trying to sabotage the other guy so that he could be the hero of the story,” Morse said. “By the end, when he tried to push the guy off the cliff, he ended up saving the guy’s life and fell in the ice. And then the guy who was trying to sabotage, became the hero.”
The festival featured action films mostly, like mountaineering, skiing and snowboarding.
Morse’s four-minute film was different though. She documented her grandmother, Karen Morse.
“She used to be a folk singer way back when, so it’s about her journey as a musician,” she said. “It’s been shown at the Nolan Center before, but I did quite a bit of edits to it to make it suitable for the big screen.”
She’s currently working on another documentary about small businesses in rural Alaska. She wants to see how tourism affects the economy in the town.
The other film student, Jackson Pearson, said attending this festival affirmed his thoughts on pursuing a career in filmmaking.
“It was really inspiring,” he said. “I got to meet and collaborate with these people that I’ve known for a long time but I haven’t actually been able to meet them in person. So it was really cool to meet them in person and to learn from them, not just about film, but about what it takes to do it and how hard it can be.”
He’s talking about people with See Stories – founder Marie Acemah, Cultural Media Mentor Connor Meyer and filmmaker Chelsea Jolly, who’s a consistent collaborator.
It’s a nonprofit that supports Alaska-based students in learning documentary film and podcasting.
Pearson is also interning with them this year. Through that, he’s helping make a documentary about the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. He said the organization will be using it as a curriculum to give to Alaska teachers.
“The ANILCA film is about how the law ANILCA affects subsistence users and subsistence rights here in Alaska,” he said.
But that’s not the film that he showed at the film festival. Instead, he presented a seven-minute film about the declining salmon population in Alaska. He made it specifically for the festival.
“I had to make a new film or show a film I made three years ago. That was my first so it was really bad,” Pearson said. “I had to make a brand new film. I was just trying to think of a good idea that has a good call to action and that is really affecting us and that has a really good story that I want to tell.”
He says his grandma gave him the idea and he really liked it because it’s such a big deal. It took him three weeks to complete the film. In that time, he was able to interview many Wrangell locals who have significant knowledge on the issue.
Pearson said, “It was very nerve wracking, obviously, but it was really cool to just see all the hard work that we put in on the big screen and recognized.”
Pearson said on top of showing his film, he thought it was really inspiring to meet other filmmakers.
“I really like sharing the stories that have gone untold and silenced and that haven’t been shared,” he said. “I think that’s really special to me.”
Wrangell Public School teacher Laura Davies mentors students in media studies through See Stories. The organization also aids educators through workshops on leading multimedia projects.
She said the experience they had in Vancouver is hard to put into words.
“I’m extremely proud of the students,” Davies said. “That was the most overwhelming feeling watching their films on the big screen. I immediately was overcome with emotion, just how proud I am because I see the films and I think of all the people that helped, whether they were being interviewed or helped with the editing process and how far both students had come.”
Davies said as she was watching the films, she also thought about the students back in Wrangell who were unable to attend. She said she basically reflected on how Pearson and Morse represented the whole program that all her students are part of. Davies said when Pearson and Morse spoke on stage, they were confident, mature and she could tell they were proud of themselves.
She said, “That’s what you really want, as an educator, for them to have that chance to shine.”
She said a byproduct of attending the festival as a teacher is that she got to learn more skills that she’s excited to use.
One of them is helping students find the story within the films they make. She said that’s different than last year, when they focused on making documentaries solely on someone. Now, it’s finding the story within that person.
Davies said, “I’m walking around kind of on a natural high today because I want to apply all of the knowledge I gained (and) the inspiration I gained from other filmmakers.”
Davies said as for going to other film festivals in the future, there’s always a cost involved.
But they learned about other festivals they could apply to and fundraise for.
