LAMORINDA WEEKLY | Impressive Productions at 6th Annual Lamorinda Acalanes Unified Film Festival


LAUFF6 winners, from left: Scott Call, Lauren Carr, Zachary Beck, Christina Beck, Julia Anderson, Colter Harris, John Cornell, Tucker O'Neil, Laura Gustafson, Paul Sarconi, Victor Thresh, Aja Adair, Conor MacKinnon, Andrew Christian, Justin Seligman, Bill Tawfall, Taylor Hunt, Jeff Sawdon Photo Justin Seligman

The Lamorinda Acalanes Unified Film Festival (LAUFF6), held last month at the Campolindo Performing Arts Center (CPAC), included screenings of 26 exciting short films, each written, directed, and produced by students from Acalanes, Campolindo, Los Lomas, Miramonte, and JM Intermediate schools, and the celebration of winners in 11 categories.

"The Campo video program offers four levels, and some students go on to top film schools," said Campolindo Film Arts teacher and LAUFF founder and coordinator Justin Seligman. "Senior Jeff Sawdon received a President's Scholarship to Dodge School of Film at Chapman University (an $80,000 scholarship). Julia Anderson also won the Young Filmmakers Scholarship ($500) sponsored by Orinda Arts Council. She was also awarded the Underclassmen award for Video Production." Leigh Scanlon won the Senior Video Production Award and Sam Crossley won a special CPAC award for four years of service to the school theater, Seligman added. "We had a fun show. Also in attendance was Vince DeQuattro of 32 Ten studios who said a few kind words from the stage."

Special acknowledgement was given to The Orinda Arts Council for sponsoring the $500 OAC Young Filmmakers Scholarship Fund to supplement summer filmmaking educational opportunities for LAUFF6 award winners. Other sponsors included New York Film Academy at Universal Studios, Lamorinda Theaters, East Bay Media Center, San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking, Academy of Art University: Pre-College Art Experience, Interlochen Center for the Arts, 32 Ten Studios and AVID, which pledged thousands of dollars in tuition reductions for winners of the film festival to attend Film/Video/Acting summer programs for teens.

"The festival showcases the talent of our community's students: as actors, as screenwriters, as cinematographers, and as digital artists. It gives them a forum to tell their own stories, in their own voices," Seligman said. "If there was one message I wish to impart to these students, it's that they have an historically unprecedented ability to deliver a message to the world. My role is to give them the tools to discover the talent they have lying within."

And the LAUFF6 winners are:

Best Actor: Conor MacKinnon

Acalanes

Mystery Product