On Friday, May 8, the annual Student Film Showcase, held in Greeley Auditorium and featuring fourteen students’ films across a wide range of genres, showcased the dedication of the filmmakers, actors, and faculty involved. Performing and Visual Arts Teacher Shane Fuller created the festival about fifteen years ago, shortly after his arrival, to showcase his students’ work. Although the event has evolved, Fuller has had a concrete vision for the event since its inception. He hopes that filmmakers will feel the “joy of … see[ing] … other people watching their work” and of “getting … [an] audience response.” He also wants community members to “see some creative and interesting ideas brought to life … [and for the event to] create some excitement around [the Milton] film program.”

In The Stream, Rhys Adams ’26 parodies his personal experience in English Teacher Mark GwinnLandry’s class. The film showcases Adams’ struggle interpreting a text and “depicts [both a] class caught in a cycle of pretentious arguments … and its eventual journey toward understanding.” Much like Adams’ filmmaking process, the students in The Stream grapple with a long and inconvenient process before finally achieving a hard-earned goal. While the piece had “moments … when … actors made brilliant comedic choices that had the whole set in stitches,” Adams struggled to execute the filming. Because “filmmaking does not reward students who divide their work into bite-sized chunks,” Adams filmed significant portions in one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half-hour sessions.

Nora Basterretxea ’26’s film A Day in Boston shared The Stream’s time management and planning challenges, but diverged sharply from Adams’ film beyond that. Unlike Adams, Basterretxea chose during the creative process to make a film without “much of a story,” basing it instead on “a day in Boston, including the journey” from her point of view. She intentionally chose the lack of a “specific storyline,” as she likes “to make films … [that are] simple and enjoyable for everyone.” Basterretxea based A Day in Boston on her entire “experience in the USA, [which] has been shaped by [her] love [for] Boston as a city.” To represent her perspective and “capture the city in [her own] way,” she added her personal touch to aspects of the film—such as the songs and color grading. Even though “it was [the] first film” Basterretxea had done “after not doing any work for the whole summer,” Basterretxea expressed that she was “really happy with how the film turned out” and that she was glad to have spent her time shooting her film during a beautiful day in Boston. Her ultimate goal with A Day in Boston was to give viewers a piece of advice: “You can always create your own style of movie, even with no experience; always give it a try and don’t be afraid to show who you are through your artwork, whatever that means for you!”

Audience member Ellie O’Connor ’29 enjoyed the experience, describing the event as “well put-together” and “a coalition of different film genres coming together” in a “warm and welcoming atmosphere.” During the event, she was particularly touched by Inés Velázquez Correa ’27’s film Dopamine. Per O’Connor, the piece explores “the world as we see it through the lens of … social media” and contrasts that world with reality, which holds “so much more beauty.” O’Conner deems the piece a “beautifully accurate portrayal of what it means to be a teenager in the digital age.”

O’Connor’s reaction exemplified the “audience response” that Fuller hoped for and validated the personal experiences and ideas that filmmakers like Velázquez Correa, Adams, and Basterretxea put time and effort into. Fuller saw his hope for “excitement” in Milton’s film program realized, as he felt “the film festival … definitely sparked [filmmaking] interest” in the audience. O’Connor reflected on the event: “this festival [was a] breath of fresh air” and a reminder that “there is always room in [this] hectic world for creative expression.”