Winning Movies In Millburn Film Festival To Be Shown At Drive-In

MILLBURN, NJ — The winning student films in the upcoming 10th Annual Millburn Film Fest will be screened outdoors on Friday evening.

All eight winning films were created by Millburn School District students and chosen by the 2021 judging panel.

This year's judges included 11 Millburn High School Alumni and past Millburn Film Fest participants. They were joined by the members of the Millburn Arts Advisory Committee again this year.

The winning filmmakers range from 5th grade to 12th grade students. Their films explore a variety of subjects and filmmaking genres.

This is the first time the films will be screened outdoors, with awards at 8 p.m. and the premiere at 8:15 p.m.

Bring your own chair to the parking lot for seating. There will be limilted parking.

Tickets are available at www.millburnedfoundation.org and will not be sold at the door. Sales were slated to end Thursday at midnight.

The films

The winning films are: The Alien; Clayception; Piano Man; Rachel Balkovec: Perseverance, Empowerment, and Women in Baseball; Smash Team 1; Ternary; A Visitor, and Who Killed Sarry.

• The Alien, an animated film by Saneev Sandran, is about an alien who comes to Earth looking for intelligent human life but encounters a variety of environmental destruction. Will the alien befriend humans and call earth home?
• An aspiring young filmmaker yearns to tell the story of a blue ball of clay in Carli Platt’s film Clayception. But how will she find inspiration? The ideas start flowing, but from where? Will there be a happy ending?
• Piano Man, a film by Griffin Talbert, delves into the end of Millburn senior Kevin Han’s high school career. Kevin is unmotivated by schoolwork and believes he is untalented compared to his other focussed, senior friends. Alas, Kevin is totally unaware of his own unique gift.
• Fifth grader Jamie De Rosa created an animated film, A Visitor, that follows a lonely girl who gets a mysterious visitor. After tragedy strikes, she will never see her visitor again—or will she?
• Gifts of the supernatural kind are showcased in Ternary, a film by senior Rachel Solomon about struggling, terminally ill musician Ryan Reznor, Ryan encounters an unlikely duo of nonconformists who are willing to offer him the help he desires but Ryan will have some difficult choices to make.
• Daniella Jacob’s documentary, Rachel Balkovec: Perseverance, Empowerment and Women in Baseball is a small glimpse into the journey and struggles of Yankees minor league hitting coach Rachel Balkovec.
• Daniel Lee’s personal documentary, Smash Team 1, highlights the antics of his Millburn Esports Smash team.
• Who Killed Sarry is Daniel Lee’s other film, which follows Zach and Danny’s dilemma after accidentally killing their friend's salamander and their inability to own up to it.

In addition, to the official selections, three films received honorable mention: Smile by Will Berezin, Nature and Science by Smit Kapadia, and Unfollowed by Alex Marx.

Highlights of the 10th Annual Film Fest can be seen here in the official trailer: MFF 10th Annual Trailer

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