Inside the Jubilee Theatre, a small crowd stares at the projector screen watching student projects submitted to the Bill Taverner Film Festival.
Each year the festival rotates between the three schools involved and is judged by local media professionals. This year it’s hosted by La Vega High School.
" I’m hoping that there can be discourse between these different schools, where they find a way to collaborate," J Martinez said. He is the Digital Communications teacher for La Vega High School. "[Collaboration] is the main goal."
The students mostly worked in small groups to create short films in one of three categories: animation, narrative (fiction) and documentary.
Eva Rodriguez and Brooklyn Starts submitted the only documentary for the festival. They are both seniors at University High School. This is their first time submitting work to a film festival.
"It was a lot of time putting into it," Starts said. "It was stressful, but it was worth it."
Their film won first place in the documentary category. They also received an invitation from the Waco Indie Film Festival to screen their documentary during its July festival.
Rodriguez said this experience, and the invitation, makes the journey worth it.
"This is something I really care to do one day in the future," she said. "So to be able to do that was really special to me."
Waco High School juniors, August Zimmerman and Marcoantonio Gayton, took first place in the narrative category with their short film about a dad who tries to finish a puzzle after his son leaves for college, but he can’t find the last piece.
Not only was this the juniors first time entering a film festival, its their first time making a short film.
"I don’t have any regrets because I’ve already learned and that’s the most important thing to me," Zimmerman said.
"This is all newfound territory," added Gayton.
La Vega High School student Kat Trevino took first place in the animation category with his film “Shapes.”
"It's such a beautiful film for how silly it is," his teacher, J Martinez said about the film. "At the core of the film, it’s really about identity and not conforming to social norms."
The festival is in its second year. Its namesake, Bill Taverner, taught Audio/Visual at University, Waco and La Vega High Schools. The festival was created after his death 2023. La Vega Graphic Design instructor, Daniel Alvarez had Taverner when he was in high school, and now gets to share Taverner’s wisdom with his students.
"It just means a lot to be able to share what we learned from him to the new generation," Alvarez said.
Martinez says the three schools plan to continue the tradition of the Bill Taverner Film Festival for years to come, hoping to expand the schools involved.
