On Oct. 14, the Washington Film Festival hosted its first high school film festival in Loudoun County at Lightridge High School. Students and parents from all over Loudoun County came to show support. 

Johnathan Kirkpatrick, a Heritage High School student, won the award for Best Film and a student from George Mason University, Tejas Sojit, won the Best Director award. Sojit found this film festival through his technical theater class at Potomac Falls High School and submitted the project over the summer.

The majority of the films were centered on mental health issues. Krishna Agarwal, student director from Lightridge High School, said that the inspiration for his film came from his co-director, Sofia Cantu, who has a friend who struggles with schizophrenia. 

Sofia Moscoso and Samantha Bernet, student directors from Lightridge, focused their film on a friend who dealt with suicidal tendencies. At the end of their film, a small message along with the suicide prevention phone number appeared on the screen.

Most of the Lightridge directors who submitted films took ideas from their class time and transformed a short film with the help of their teacher, Brandon Kalbaugh. Catherine Cabral and Brandon Foley, student directors from Lightridge, said they submitted their films because “we like movies.”

Foley said he “wants to keep doing them [movies] forever.”

Bradford Russell, founder and executive director of the Washington Film Festival said the event is the only one of its type “to donate 100% of its proceeds to a humanitarian cause.”

This year, the film festival plans on donating its proceeds to Ukrainian refugees through Project Hope. 

Russell said the purpose of the film festival is “to bring together people of different political views, different perspectives on the world, and unify them to create good together. We create a story here.”