Film Festival Sneak Peek

Alpena’s high school students got a sneak peek into the Thunder Bay International Film Festival Monday afternoon.

Students in grades 9-12 got a chance to head into the auditorium and watch around ten films that will be showcased at the upcoming festival, which begins this Friday. Film festival Coordinator, Stephanie Gondulla, hopes that this sneak peek will inspire students to come to the film festival, but also wants students to take away something important.

“Of course we hope these students are inspired by seeing careers they maybe never knew existed, or maybe learning about places they had never heard of. And also maybe being inspired to consider filmmaking as a career itself. We do have a student film competition that we love to see lots of Alpena students participating in,” says Gondulla.

This is the first year the sanctuary has brought the film festival to students in the area, and Gondulla says they can’t wait to include hundreds of kids in the discussions these films hope to initiate.

“I’ve talked with a number of teachers who brought their classes to the sneak peek film festival here today, and they’re really excited to be bringing the discussion topics back to the classroom,” Gondulla adds.

The film festival itself will be running from January 20th to the 29th, and there will be a wide variety of films for everyone to enjoy.