Lockport High School film festival to showcase student projects

Lockport — Lockport Township High School East Campus will host School District 205’s second annual film festival on Friday evening.

Three student organizations, the Porter Players, Club Create and the Video Club, have collaborated on the Lockport Township High School Short Film Festival, creating six five-minute short films which will be screened at the event.

Student directors from the Porter Players created six groups and began writing original scripts over the summer, according to an announcement from Lockport Township High School.

Auditions for the films were held in September, and acting rehearsals and film lessons were held in fall before filming of the scripts commenced in October, according to School District 205.

Students finished filming and began editing over the winter break and throughout the first days of the second semester. All six films were completed in January with assistance from the three group’s staff sponsors – English teacher Kennedy Birner, Media Specialist Kevin Conway, Math teacher Christy Kilmer and Media Specialist Jeff Krohn.

The film festival, which begins at 7 p.m. on Friday, will showcase these six films and six additional entries submitted by students who were not part of the official club projects.

Between the 12 films, over 50 students were involved in the productions, according to School District 205.

The six projects produced by the Porter Players, Video Club and Club Create will be viewed by a panel of judges and one will be declared the winner.

The group that wins will go on to serve as the District 205 entry at the Illinois High School Association Drama and Group Interpretation State Competition on March 28 and 29 at Harold L. Richards High School in Oak Lawn.

“A couple of years ago, the film component of the IHSA drama competition was introduced, and two years ago I decided it was time to start the process of getting LTHS involved,” said Briner. “We had a successful first year and first festival in 2024 so we [the teachers] unanimously agreed to bring it back in 2025.”

Prior to the introduction of the short film category, Drama and Group Interpretation only included two competitive events which involved live theatrical productions.

Short films and musical theater categories were added in 2021 following the COVID-19 pandemic and are both pre-recorded and submitted digitally.

“The addition of short film and Musical Theatre Review helped allow for competitive, creative theatre to happen when not everyone could safely be together in close proximities working on dramatic projects and led to more opportunities for students to be involved then and ever since,” Briner said. “Our festival at Lockport celebrates all student film creators from our three clubs regardless if their film was made as a creative passion project or to qualify and participate in other competitions or festivals.”

The competitive short films will be judged on criteria including creativity, effective storyline, technical aspects, acting, artistic merit and overall presentation.

General seating admission to the LTHS Student Short Film Festival is free. Donations will be accepted at the door to support the program.