The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) upholds its standings as a cherished piece of history for locals and visitors. Celebrating 40 years, the nonprofit organization hosts a multitude of events, including the 10-10-10 panel.
The 10-10-10 panel took place on the afternoon of Feb. 15, presenting local high school and college students five-month-long films born of love and labor.
Traditionally, the panel honors pairs of 10 high school students and 10 college students for their work on 10 unique films.
This year, however, one screenwriter was left in the competition by herself. Rylie Cook, a junior attending San Marcos High School, handed in her script after three months of work to find her directorial counterpart to have bailed on the program.
“I handed off the script to find she’d bailed,” Cook said. “I had only script, no film.”
Despite the pain of not seeing her work come to life, the judging panel awarded Cook for her screenwriting ability.
With students from all local institutions welcomed into the program, Chloe Thoroughgood, a student at City College was behind the directorial work for “After Image”. In partnership with screenwriter and 10-10-10 award winner Travers Tobis, featuring a story of acceptance, a wife and mother forced to confront the truth of her husband’s death, along with the fear that comes with picking up the pieces after such an emotional loss.
“It was amazing to be on 10-10-10, I learned most ever learned on a program, I got to meet amazing people, to work with amazing people,” Thoroughgood said with a smile. “It was an amazing opportunity.”
With plans to transfer to Davis or Berkeley, Thoroughgood will continue to work in the arts. She discussed her roots as a film photographer and expressed interest in returning focus to it.
The films shown in the Arlington Theater were impressive with quality in lighting, camera work and even soundtrack despite all works being shot with cell phone cameras.
Grace Wilson, lead actress in “Who Are You, Molly Baker?”, a solo film from Dos Pueblos High School student Selah Blackwell, spoke highly of her time with the crew and participation in the visualization of Blackwell’s story.
“It was good! It was super professional for them being high school kids,” Wilson said. “They had super good equipment, iPhones with huge lenses.”
Blackwell brought her story to life with complete creative control as a screenwriter and director. She stated that it was her first film production, she had no portfolio film when applying to the program.
“It was very fun, I learned a lot of life skills about film, how to organize people . . . I learned how to fail,” Blackwell said. “Film is personal, it’s something personal to you that you take and translate to so many people.”
With such dedicated creatives, the selection for awards couldn’t have been an easy process. While only four students walked away with awards, all 19 walked away with the warmth of joy from seeing their months of hard work pay off.
