Ocean City HS Alumni Raise Money To Make Benefit Short Film

OCEAN CITY, NJ — A film production company staffed with Ocean City High School graduates is raising money to produce a short film that will benefit frontline workers.

Five Tribes Cinema Productions’ three-minute film titled “Ave Maria” follows a man who confronts the five stages of grief after his wife dies during a pandemic.

“When the world was shutting down and hospitals were overwhelmed I wanted to go to a hospital and see what I could do. I had the urge to help,” said Colin Stewart, the director of “Ave Maria,” who graduated from Drexel University in May with a degree in film and video.

Stewart and his colleagues decided to channel their energy into a film project that would benefit frontline workers and resonate with viewers, as more than two million people worldwide have died from COVID-19.

The company has organized a GoFundMe for donations that will help cover the cost for making the film, including the insurance to shoot in a historic church and lighting equipment for the production. Additional donations will be contributed to the COVID-19 Response Fund.

Alongside Stewart, other Ocean City High School graduates producing the film include TJ Rumer, Greg Fischer, David Laverty and Paul Giordano.

The story of the film is especially personal to Stewart, whose grandmother died due to COVID-19. Stewart hopes the film will put a face to the disease that has claimed the lives of millions of people.

The company will soon begin filming at Saint Monica Parish in Philadelphia with experienced actors. The film’s musical score includes church music played on an organ that is housed at the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium in Atlantic City.

“We have a high bar set for ourselves. We want this to be the best looking thing we could possibly put out,” Stewart said. “We want people to see this and think ‘I could see this in an IMAX theater.’”

In the film, the wife of a man named Joseph Hernandez dies from COVID-19 and he is unable to be by her side when she passes. Hernandez goes to his childhood church as he struggles with his grief.

“It’s veiled in a religious allegory, but the message is universal and asks the philosophical question, ‘Why me?’ People are getting sick and you can’t really know why,” Stewart said, adding that people often second guess their own actions after a loved one dies from an easily transmissible disease. “I wanted to hone in on that and the story is really him talking that through out loud.”

After hearing this story, Stewart hopes viewers will walk away with an increased awareness of how their actions can have consequences.

“I really want people to realize that there’s a human aspect to this. I want people to see the face, connect and realize 'maybe I should take this seriously,'” Stewart said.

Click here to donate to the benefit short film project “Ave Maria”

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