To get somewhere — anywhere — in the movie business, the first requirement is sheer nerve. All the talent in the world doesn’t mean a thing without a lot of brass and moxie. It should be noted, then, that the teenagers putting on the Westport Youth Film Festival this month are probably headed for terrific careers.
The debut festival last year drew 700 people to the Fairfield Community Theatre, and everyone in attendance witnessed the amazing energy expended by the young filmmakers. The courtyard outside the theater was a bustling circus of teen intensity, and the two screens inside spilled over with electric juice that comes when kids take to the cameras. Whether cartoons or serious documentaries, the short films popped with life. And by midday the pile of empty pizza boxes by the front door was five feet tall.
Now organizing the sequel to the event, festival co-directors Chris Casey and Daniel Burstein, both seventeen, have been feverishly working the angles to make sure the ’05 program is even better — that is, when they’re not attending classes at Weston High.
To read this article in its entirety, please purchase this month’s issue of WESTPORT magazine. If you’d like a listing of local newsstands where WESTPORT magazine is sold, please click here. Or, to subscribe click here.