By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

Students from all three Pflugerville ISD high schools wrapped shooting Monday on a short film they plan to enter into this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

This marked the second year of the school district’s collaboration with Round Rock-based film producer Midian Films to organize a student project for the famed international film fest in Cannes, France.

“I think we’re all more experienced and that’s really huge for us since last year was kind of a pilot,” Connally High video technology teacher Humberto Perez said. “This year we had a plan, having already been through it one year. It was a little more difficult because we had to incorporate students from all three high schools. It got bigger fast, and that was a huge challenge but they’ve been a very productive group – a great group.”

The program started at Connally last year with the film “Fallen,” which was accepted to Cannes and gave a rare opportunity for a handful of CHS students to attend the festival and present their work.

The district worked with Midian Film founders Dana Glover and Michelle Carter to form the nonprofit organization Cinema Du Cannes to back this year’s student effort, and expand participation to Hendrickson and Pflugerville High.

Connally senior Irving Juarez was one of the select students who got to attend Cannes last year – an opportunity he said was eye-opening.

“It takes you into the world of filmmaking and how it goes from being a hobby to an actual profession,” Juarez said. “People around the world are actually doing this for a living.”

Juarez returned to the project this year as Cinema Du Cannes’ director of operations, and he has his hands in everything from mentoring the film’s co- directors, to helping move lights and assemble equipment. The nonprofit is about to start its publicity push and hopes to raise much-needed funds to send students overseas with their film.

Juarez said the crew learned from the previous year’s mistakes, and despite the addition of students from HHS and PHS, collaboration was believed to be better this year.

“I was watching the DVD from last year, and just looking at the behind-the-scenes footage, and the way the students work – we move efficiently and we know how to work because of last year,” Juarez said.

This year’s film, “Carney’s Darkness” is a 15-minute drama about a terminally ill man’s reflection on life, told through flashbacks. The script was written by Hendrickson High School student Justin Mendoza, and is being co-directed by Paige Marshall from Pflugerville High and Alexis Campanile of Hendrickson.

“From the minute we met, we connected. It’s like our minds are the same,” Marshall said. “We never got the time to actually sit down and talk about what our vision was, so we were kind of playing it by ear.”

After countless script readings and an exhaustive casting process, Campanile and Marshall said they share a vision for the narrative, and direct the film based on the variety of emotions they hope to evoke from its audience.

Last year, all but one of the actors were PISD high school students. This year only one of the film’s 11 cast members is a PISD student, and actors range in age from 10 to 50 years old.

“We were making casting calls all over, and in a matter of three days we had over 70 people who wanted to come audition,” Juarez said.

Glover and Carter act as hands-off mentors to the crew of 53 teenagers, who they said worked well together.

“Honestly it went smoother [than last year],” Glover said. “The group of kids was more cohesive and they worked better together. I think that’s because we had students that had a lot of experience, and students that had no experience at all who were more willing to listen.”

Carter said the students showed progress in their moviemaking I.Q., but that working with teenagers requires the accommodation of the gamut when it comes to their professionalism and interest levels.

“There’s a difference in maturity levels here, and though they all may love film, there are different levels of love for film,” Carter said. “The shots [this year] were set up more cinematically… That’s because of their being able to talk with each other and not feeling threatened by each other. I think more collaboration is there.”

To save time under their strict production deadlines, the students have been editing scenes daily. With the filming wrapped, the crew plans to finish postproduction and have a final rough cut of the film edited by Feb. 8.

Cinema Du Cannes will premiere “Carney’s Darkness” at Connally High on Feb. 17, and plans currently call for a screening at the Tinsletown Cinemark.

Campanile and Marshall said after the hours they’ve poured into the project since late September of last year, they are more excited to view the finished product than they are about the possibility of going to France.

The Cannes Film Festival runs May 16-27. Juarez said he wants his crewmates to know what it feels like to place their film’s promotional card among the hordes of other festival entrants big and small at the Palais des Festivals.

He said the red carpet events in Cannes were so star-studded, catching glimpses of immortal film icons became commonplace after a short while.

“We got to see Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise – everybody,” Juarez said. “There were times we were just laying at the beach and we’d look to our left and a TV crew would be interviewing all over the place.”