Community members from across Charlottesville packed inside the Paramount Theater on the Downtown Mall to witness Light House Studio’s Youth Film Festival Sept. 7. For nearly a quarter of a century, the festival has acted as a labor of love and a celebration of the talents of Charlottesville youth.
Students range in age from elementary to high school and vary in skill level from the novice directors to seasoned creatives. United by a love of the craft and working towards a single creative goal, they are able to produce magnificent works of art that are screened at one of the town’s most magnificent venues.
Rachel Lane, Light House’s program director and leader of several filmmaking workshops, spoke to the remarkable creativity and ingenuity of the students throughout the production process this year.
“The content has really included pretty much anything you could think of, but at the core it’s the student kind of perspective that is shared with the community through their storytelling.” Lane said.
In 2024 alone, Light House Studio collaborated with 58 community partners from around the city, ultimately teaching 1,193 students across 82 different workshops. These camps and workshops — many of which were one-week, theme-specific programs during the summer — produced 400 films, of which 22 of the best were screened at this year’s festival. Partners range from local businesses to other film festivals to Starr Hill Pathways, a youth program that operates within the Equity Center at the University.
One of the most notable aspects of Light House’s programming is that it is approachable and accessible to youth of all ages and backgrounds, breaking down differences among the filmmakers and leveling the playing field of a traditionally unapproachable medium. Regardless of their filmmaking experience or knowledge of the medium, Light House designs its camps and workshops to meet students where they are and give them the tools and techniques to succeed in the creation of their film.
Seth Raffinan, a junior at Tandem Friends School, spoke about the value of Light House’s programming, especially for students without experience or knowledge in the filmmaking sphere.
“Light House is great,” Raffinan said. “They provided everything that we needed … They really helped us through every step of the way, and it was very helpful for somebody who hadn’t been in that experience before.”
It is not just the students who appreciate and admire the mission of Light House. The parents, too, feel that the lessons learned and the methods practiced in the workshops are truly invaluable, giving their children unique skills to prepare them for the next stages of their lives, wherever that may take them.
Lucy Montalvo, director of Starr Hill Pathways and the mother of Nicholas LeRose — one of the youth filmmakers whose piece screened at the festival — celebrated Light House on their mission and execution of such successful programming.
“Light House is to be commended,” Montalvo said. “I’ve seen it over and over again and all of the times that Light House has worked with our kids, they allow the kids to lead with their creativity and what they write and how they want it to be.”
The films are as varied as the filmmakers themselves, ranging in length from under a minute to more than six minutes and covering a spectacularly broad scope of topics. A more light-hearted work at last weekend’s festival included “Start Your Engines,” a stop-motion animated Lego film about a car race, whereas “Non Vaping Man: The Hero You Never Knew You Needed” took on a heavier subject as a public service announcement aimed at reducing substance use.
One of these more serious pieces was “BITW,” an acronym that stands for “Booted Into The Woods.” This film was both hilarious and resounding in its message, aimed at curbing unhealthy social media use among teenagers. Produced as a part of the Summer Internship for Teens program through the University’s Thriving Youth in a Digital Environment initiative, the piece was the collaborative work of LeRose, Raffinan, Liam Gulotta and Natalie McDonald, four local high school students who come from three different schools, three different grades and wildly different perspectives and interests.
Despite their different backgrounds and experience levels, these students shared a passion for their project and created a cohesive, resounding piece of art that only students could make. Gulotta, a freshman at St. Anne’s-Belfield School who worked on the direction of the film, remarked at how the project brought the four filmmakers together.
“It was a bond through film, through filmmaking,” Gulotta said. “As you go through the journey of making a film, we just bonded more.”
At the end of this year’s festival, all of the student filmmakers gathered onstage as the award winners were announced. “Wheel of Misfortunate,” a quick, funny spoof on “Wheel of Fortune” won the Jury Award, while “New Cat on the Block,” a slickly animated short about cats with deeply human traits, took home the Audience Award. These films marked highlights of an evening jam-packed with creativity, energy and stories that can only be told from a student’s perspective.
For many of the students, the Light House workshops marked their first foray into the world of filmmaking. But whether they sought out the creative outlet as early exposure to a future Hollywood career or merely an experiment with a new art form, each student took away something of value from their time with their program, something that they may not have otherwise received in their general curriculum.
McDonald, a junior at St. Anne’s-Belfield School, does not see herself going into the film industry as a professional, but nonetheless appreciated her time spent with her internship program.
“I think there’s a lot of value in learning about different ways to communicate a message,” McDonald said. “One of the themes of the camp, and just something you encounter everyday is social media. And I feel like at school, we do a lot of writing or we do creative slide decks, but we never really get into the filmmaking aspect.”
For others, the film festival marks the beginning of a creative passion, one which many students hope to pursue in the future. Either through academic endeavors, professional pursuits or further Light House programming, the students have the creativity, passion and the tools to help them thrive as filmmakers.
“I’m very interested in film production,” LeRose, a sophomore at Monticello High School, said. “I’ve looked at a few colleges that are strictly film [programs]. I think that in the future, I definitely see myself in some form, working in film production, whether that be direction, producing or writing.”
Alison Gulotta, Liam’s mother, spoke to the unique style of education that not only fosters greater engagement with the material being taught in the workshops, but promotes a love of learning and of collaboration through creative expression that is increasingly crucial in a rapidly changing and digitizing world.
“[The workshop] was such a great example of how when students are engaged in what they want to be learning or doing, they will not only enjoy it more, but be more invested, more committed, and most likely, more constructive,” Gulotta said. “They’re learning by having fun. And what’s better than that?”
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