Student filmmakers open up to their biggest audiences yet

Published October 2, 2025

BY ZANA BALABAN

For select members of the film class at Carmel High School, October brings two rounds of spotlights for their original films–the Carmel International Film Festival and the All American High School Film Festival in New York. In the upcoming weeks, CHS seniors Adam Angel and Ember Franklin Brunton and juniors Dorien Jeffers and Ava Bernadette Daniels will have the chance to compete with films from around the globe, connect with industry leaders and showcase their work in front of thousands of viewers.

Carmel International Film Festival

Held right in CHS’ backyard, the Carmel International Film Festival returned last year as a modern showcase, bringing in panels of industry professionals and over 1,200 attendees a day, to honor the treasure trove of film history in Carmel-by-the-Sea. In fact, festival co-director Annette Caton’s research shows CIFF’s roots may date back to early fall 1929, three years before the Venice Film Festival, which claims to be the oldest in the world.

Now, nearly a century later, the festival presents a unique opportunity for students to compete against seasoned filmmakers.

“I’ve worked in film and television most of my life, and I am blown away by the quality of the films that we received from student filmmakers,” says Caton, an experienced actress, writer and producer, who worked on “The Simpsons” and “Marshall.” “We’re at such a critical stage in the history of this industry that film as a medium could easily slip away if we don’t invest in the youth.”

The festival will take place Oct. 2-5, with viewings primarily at the Founders Theatre in the Golden Bough Playhouse.

All American High School Film Festival

Two weeks later, the same CHS students will board a plane to New York City, where their films will be presented in the annual All American High School Film Festival on Oct. 15-17. Recognized as the world’s largest student film festival, AASHFF brings in the top quality films from around the world, offering a high-stakes stage for rising stars. 

According to CHS film and video production teacher Brian Granbery, the level of competition has increased over the past few years.

“Our students will be against specialized magnet film high schools, high-end private schools and well-funded high schools located in dense filmmaking areas like Los Angeles and NYC where resources and mentorships are more abundant,” Granbery explains. That being said, the mentor notes the undeniable talent of the CHS students. “Some of the student films have over 100 hours of work in them, and festivals like this breathe new life into all the hard work, effort and creativity that went into them.”

“Ecdysis”

“Ecdysis,” defined as the process of shedding one’s skin, is a unique coming-of-age story, the brainchild of two close senior friends Adam Angel and Ember Franklin Brunton. The short film follows a teenage boy named Reed, played by Brunton, who, feeling like he’s missing out on pivotal childhood experiences, wanders out into nature in search of human connection.

After developing the storyline together last spring, Angel went on to write the screenplay and later took charge of the technical aspects of post-production, including scoring the original soundtrack, directing on-site and editing the shots.

“We didn’t want to be a cliché,” says Angel, also a published singer-songwriter. “We wanted to stand out in a way that the storyline could apply to any age.”

Striving for originality and authenticity took immense work, and the seniors share vivid stories about staying up filming past 2 a.m. or even missing school during the intense editing process.

“After school, every single day, we would go drive around Carmel Valley and Big Sur and explore to find spots to shoot the film,” Brunton says.

Other filmmaking aspects set Angel and Brunton’s team apart from other student filmmakers. The use of aspect ratios, for one, is a way they worked to add subtle differences that would subconsciously impact the way a viewer perceives the film.

“In the beginning, the frame is very square, like Reed is trapped,” Angel explains. “When he goes on his journey, it expands to a wider, more cinematic view, and by the very end, we’re at full screen. It symbolizes his fulfillment and how his horizons have expanded.”

Their dedication paid off, and the two look forward to their opportunities at the CIFF competition as well as traveling to New York in the coming month.

“Mind Scape”

A science-fiction piece about the dangers of artificial intelligence, junior Dorien Jeffers’ “Mind Scape” tells the story of a young boy so consumed by his loneliness that he uploads AI code, his only companion, directly into his brain. When the code becomes unstable, Jeffers narrates a powerfully animated adventure into the inner mind of the protagonist as he hunts for the root of his AI’s darkness.

“The virus is the embodiment of his loneliness,” explains Jeffers, an amateur filmmaker since fifth grade. “At the end, when he’s on the grass field and takes a moment to calm down, this epiphany takes away the power of his loneliness and the AI.”

Scenes that take place in the mind realm were filmed in the junior’s emptied basement with a greenscreen and a treadmill, before using advanced animation software and chroma keys to put the whole world together.

A unique aspect of Jeffers’ short story is the grainy film look, adding to the dreamlike, yet unsettling, quality of the visuals.

“The graininess serves to hide the imperfections in the CGI, but it also adds an eerie vibe,” says Jeffers, who is keen on small storytelling details like this.

The two upcoming competitions will present opportunities for the young filmmaker to work towards his end goal: to be accepted to a high-quality film school en route to a future directing career.

“Maybe I’ll win, maybe I won’t,” he says. “There’s a lot of experience to learn from the big film festivals, so I’m really going for that. Hopefully, I can talk to other filmmakers and learn from them.”

“ROT.”

Junior Ava Bernadette Daniels’ experimental film “ROT.” unravels the question, “What happens if you stay in bed all day?”

Inspired in part by The Beatles’ song “Golden Slumbers,” Daniels details the story of a high school girl sheltered from her mental illness in the comfort of her bedsheets, questioning her childhood and the changing world around her. The film utilizes voice-over narration, with Daniels reciting the protagonist’s diary as an extended piece of poetry.

“I try to make everything, both in broadcast and in film, relatable,” she says. “I don’t want to just see myself when I’m watching my movies, I want to hear every single person in the world say, ‘Wow, that’s me.’”

As a one-woman show, the aspiring director handled every aspect of the film, shooting the majority with a tripod over her bed and interspersing childhood home movies from friends with contemporary newsreels, demonstrating an important parallel for Daniels.

“What changes from when you’re younger to when you’re in high school is how you think of your childhood,” Daniels says. “You either think of it as perfect, or you start to develop different emotions. I wanted to focus on who she was when she was little compared to who she is now.”

The film’s narration captures that shift in perspective, distilling these emotions into a reflective monologue that threads through the film.

“This isn’t some rebirth,” says Daniels in the film. “I’m not new, I’m not fixed. The world is on fire. Kids are still laughing, people are still loving each other in grocery stores and subway cars and hospital rooms. And I want to be a part of that again, because little me knows I have more to give.”

Tickets for the Carmel International Film Festival can be found at ciffest.com, and the CHS student films can also be viewed at padretv.org.