By Justine Goode
A serial killing cooking teacher, a renegade Cupid, a hypercompetitive lemonade stand owner â all these characters and more will be featured in films at the 2010 Cine Youth Festival in Chicago.
Five films made by Harvard-Westlake students will be screened as part of this showcase celebrating filmmakers 20 years old and younger.
Short films made by both current students as well as recent alumni were officially selected to be a part of the festival.
Zelda Wengrod â13 and Halsey Robertsonâs â13 film “The Cooking Class,” Olivia Chubaâs â12 “The Stand,” Jake Gutmanâs â10 film “Visibly Impaired” and Phoebe Singerâs â09 work “Cupidity” will all be featured.
Adam Maltz â09 and Lucas Cassoâs â09 film “Dem Shoes,” which will also be screened at the festival, was shortlisted for a Music Video Award.
The Cine Youth festival is an off-shoot of the Chicago International Film Festival, where such directors as Martin Scorsese and Mike Leigh made their feature film debuts.
Over the course of the three day festival, the student filmmakers will get the opportunity to attend workshops and discussions at Columbia College Chicago, the “countryâs biggest film school.”
“I have been pretty surprised by the response to the movie. I really liked how it turned out, but didnât know that professionals would really enjoy it this much,” Robertson said.
Robertsonâs film “The Cooking Class” (about “an innocent boy, who is tricked by his serial killer cooking teacher”) was created at the Harvard-Westlake film camp last summer, under the instruction of Upper School Visual Arts Department Head Cheri Gaulke.
The 2010 Cine Youth Festival will take place from May 6 to 8.
