Last moth 17 year old Bend High student Max Reisfar was announced 2nd place winner for his film, The Last Voyage of The Alert at the 2011 Youth Silent Film Festival in Portland.
74 films created by 190 young filmmakers were submitted for this year’s festival. Submissions arrived from as far north as Vancouver, BC, and as far south as Temecula, California. The vast majority of filmmakers reside in Oregon and Southwest Washington. This year’s winners were determined by the festival’s celebrity jurors who include the Oscar nominated and Cannes Film Festival winner Gus Van Sant, New York Times best selling author Chuck Palahniuk, publisher/writer/producer and Saturn Award Winner Kerry O’Quinn and writer/producer Tom DeSanto.
The top three winning filmmakers received cash prizes, a fashion makeover by The FHF Group, appeared on KGW’s live @7, and were invited to a private meeting with judges Kerry O’Quinn and Tom DeSanto.
Reisfar said, “loved meeting those guys, they were so encouraging.” In addition to filmmaking Reisfar is an actor and one of the hosts of the Weirdo Radio show on KPOV.
A sanctioned event of the Portland Rose Festival, the competition is open to all filmmakers aged 20 years or younger as of April 15, 2011. Submissions must be three minutes in length and use pre-recorded music that will be supplied by the festival organizers. The Youth Silent Film Festival is presented in collaboration with philanthropist Jon “JP” Palanuk, organist Nathan Avakian, the Northwest Film Center, Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc. and the Columbia River Theatre Organ Society.
Info: www.makesilentfilm.com or info@makesilentfilm.com.
Here is a link to Reisfar’s award winning film: http://vimeo.com/23001593
