DEO Middle School Students Win at Montclair University Film Competition

Future New Milford filmmakers were awarded third place in the Montclair State University's "French Day" student film competition last month by beating out fellow New Jersey and Pennsylvania students.

The eighth grade David E. Owens Middle School class under the supervision of French language teacher Issam Helwani won with their entry “The Québec Café Catastrophe." The third-place video was an original creation set in Quebec where the student actors had to resolve a problem while only speaking French. 

The film competition sought to educate students about the global status of the French language by drawing attention to the places and situations in which one can speak French in the world today.  

“It is remarkable to see so many students using their French skills so beautifully in real-world contexts," said Montclair State University Language Professor Elizabeth Emery, one of the event’s organizers in a press release. "I am thrilled that they realize French’s unique status as a global language and hope their next step will be to travel to the different countries where French is spoken.”

Over 300 secondary school students teachers attended the “French Day” event at Montclair State University. Participants attended workshops and viewed films set around the theme, “Voyager en français”, which translates to “travel in French”. 

The event celebrated aspects of the Humanities – history, literature, art, music, communication, and global studies – through the lens of the French language. The university’s Institute for the Humanities and the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures collaborated to create the event to show students how the two subjects work hand in hand.