Wrangell students’ filmmaking efforts are going global — at least to Vancouver, British Columbia.
This February, Wrangell high schoolers Jackson Pearson and Silje Morse will travel to the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival alongside teacher Laura Davies. The trio was invited to attend the festival by See Stories — an Alaska nonprofit dedicated to building “inclusive communities with film and story.”
See Stories and Wrangell’s high school documentary film club, Stikine Stories (whose program is modeled after See Stories), have collaborated since 2022. Pearson, who is a sophomore this year, began interning with See Stories last fall.
“The idea is to give them an opportunity to learn from other filmmakers,” Davies said, “but also to share what they are doing.”
While pitching the proposal to the school board last month, Davies said the district will not be responsible for any fundraising efforts for the festival and that its only costs would be in finding a substitute teacher for the day she is out of town.
She added that the students are doing fundraising of their own. Pearson, upon hearing about the opportunity, reached out to Mike Aak’wtaatseen Hoyt and asked if he could create a form line design that could be embroidered on a T-shirt to help with fundraising.
Since then, Davies has created a Bonfire online shopping site to see some shirts and other Stikine Stories merchandise (https://www.bonfire.com/stikine-stories160/). Proceeds will help cover the students’ travel and lodging costs.
While the film festival is a 10-day event, the Wrangell regiment will attend for the weekend programming Feb. 22-24. Not only will the students have a chance to view the work of other filmmakers, Davies said they will also be given a platform to share some of their own work.
At the opening night of the festival, Pearson will screen his short film on the recent declining salmon population, something he was invited to do at the behest of festival leadership. Pearson is thrilled by the chance to attend the festival and aims to take full advantage of the trip.
“My goal is to reach out and talk to other filmmakers that are there, that have more experience than me and learning everything I can from them so it can improve my own filmmaking,” he said.
This is the first time students have been specifically invited to the festival, and the reason Wrangell was chosen is largely due to the relationship between Davies’ documentary club and See Stories. When approached about bringing students to Vancouver, See Stories founder and director Marie Acemah immediately knew which students to bring.
“We thought of which community would be a natural fit to really do something we haven’t done before, and it was a no brainer,” Acemah said. “The students and Laura (Davies) and community in Wrangell — you can set your clock by them.”
It being the first year of this partnership, Davies thought it best to limit the number of students attending the festival, though she said she hopes to expand the offering in the years to come. She said that after seeing the impact the December trip to Washington D.C. had on Wrangell’s T3 students (Teaching Through Technology), she wants to give students as many off-island opportunities as possible.
For Acemah, this beta run with the Wrangell students is just the first step in a reoccurring partnership connecting the festival, Alaska students and See Stories — which recently was recognized in the arts and humanities at the 2024 Governors Awards.
“I think the idea is this would be an ongoing partnership we could do year after year,” Acemah said. “It’s like we planted a seed, and it’s become a huge forest in Wrangell.”
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