Beverly Elementary Students Win Award at Michigan Student Film and Video Festival

Visual creativity by third to fifth graders at will be honored at a prestigious festival later this month.

Alien Zoological Society, a three-minute animated video with rock music, is a Best of Show winner selected for screening at the 44th Michigan Student Film and Video Festival at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The work by 16 Birmingham pupils is among video shorts, cartoons and excerpts of longer films to be shown April 28 on a full-size screen in the ornate, 1,200-seat Detroit Film Theater.

Art teacher Tony Fink, who teaches digital animation lessons as part of the art programs at Beverly, and elementary schools, guided these students last fall in creating the award-winning project:

Kaitlin Capinjola, Nicholas Capinjola, Sean Eryk Koponen, Joe Cook, John Cook, Madeline Mathias, Gretchen Wilber, Mattye Tierce, Halle Misra, Bella Caza, Abigail Landers, Sean Piotrowicz, Natalie Leeper, Samantha Mantua, Kellar Kanat and Rose Delano.

Judging and the five-hour festival are organized annually by a Royal Oak-based nonprofit Digital Arts, Film and Television (DAFT). The group invites K-12 teachers and students to submit class projects and independent work in a dozen categories, including music video, newscast, sports, documentary, public service announcement, comedy, instructional and general entertainment.

"The main goal is to encourage and support young people who are already using media," says festival director Kathy Vander of Berkley.

Three dozen educators and media professionals reviewed hundreds of statewide entries last month at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. They chose 25 high school winners and 22 from lower grades, all of who will share more than $20,000 in scholarships and prizes thanks to support from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Kresge Foundation.

Other entrants receive certificates of excellence, honor or merit. All are invited to the free festival, which starts at 10 a.m. in the 1927 theater downtown and is open to the public.

In addition to Beverly's honorees, winners include students from Dearborn, Grosse Pointe, Lake Orion, Novi, Royal Oak, West Bloomfield and the Huron Valley Council for the Arts.

Submissions also came from Detroit, Holland, Kalamazoo, Madison Heights, Sterling Heights and smaller communities. Parents or schools paid $10 to $15 per entry, depending on how many DVDs were sent.

DAFT, an education nonprofit, was created in 1969 to promote media literacy with workshops and conferences for students, teachers and other professionals.

"This the oldest festival in the nation providing public recognition for the work of students in grades K-12," says Vander, an award-winning film producer who's an account manager at TVS Commercial Solutions in Troy. She joined DAFT's  board in 1996.

"In fact, many young people who got their first public exposure through this festival have gone on to professional careers."