Royal Oak High students’ documentaries win awards

ROYAL OAK — Two Royal Oak High School students recently received accolades for their documentaries from the 54th annual Michigan Student Film Festival, the country’s longest-running film festival presented by Digital Arts, Film and Television.

Junior Farrah Ardwin and senior Sophia Pelegrino were among 32 best-in-show winners selected from more than 350 student films submitted to the festival — the most submitted in the competition’s history.

Ardwin’s documentary focused on teen vaping, arguing that the federal government should better regulate vaping products to keep them out of the hands of teenagers. Pelegrino’s documentary focused on school shootings and gun control following the Oxford High School shooting.

The contest is open to all students in the state, with a junior division for kindergarten through eighth grades and a senior division for ninth through 12th grades. Students can submit in seven categories: animation, documentary, music video/montage, narrative film, news/sports magazine program, experimental and public service announcement.

Michael Conrad teaches video and television production at Royal Oak High School and also serves as president and focal point instructor for the DAFT Board of Directors. His third-year film class’s second-quarter project was to create submissions for the C-SPAN StudentCam documentary competition.

The prompt this year was, “How does the federal government impact your life? Explore a federal policy or program. Evaluate its effectiveness from multiple perspectives.”

“They researched the topic, reached out to schedule interviews that were done face to face or over Zoom, and basically were given access to the C-SPAN archives to pull pieces and interview clips from C-SPAN broadcasts,” Conrad said. “We do it every year. The kids get out of their own selves to really attack a topic and think about it in a very intricate way.”

He said about seven of his students submitted their documentaries to the Michigan Student Film Festival, with Ardwin and Pelegrino winning awards. Another student in his class, senior Faye Pinho, also received an honorable mention from the C-SPAN StudentCam documentary competition for her documentary about the rising cost of child care for working parents.

The Michigan Student Film Festival awards took place inside the Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts on June 4, marking a return to an in-person ceremony after two years of holding it virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ardwin said she has been interested in filmmaking for most of her life, starting off by making music videos with her friends and progressing from there. She said she plans to study film production after high school and praised Conrad for helping her develop her film skills.

“(I chose to do my documentary about teen vaping) just because it’s such a huge issue that affects everyone right now, especially kids my age,” she said. “It’s not allowed in school, although it is extremely common for people to try to sneak it in and do it at social gatherings.”

She interviewed students anonymously, as well as health professionals, in an effort to educate the broader public about the dangers of vaping.

“I’m just very happily shocked that I am getting this recognition for this,” Ardwin said. “I am hoping it’s going to inspire more change for kids my age who are vaping or are curious about it.”

Founded in 1969, DAFT is a nonprofit media-arts educational organization whose primary mission is to promote the creative use of film and electronic media.

For more information about the Michigan Student Film Festival or to view the winning films, visit daftonline.org/festival. For more information about the C-SPAN StudentCam documentary competition, visit studentcam.org.