Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Explosive Graphite at the Riled Marmot Film Festival

On Sunday, I got to go to the Riled Marmot Film Festival, an event sponsored by my former parish which used to be more about showing movies that youth would probably find interesting and has become a time for youth to showcase their own blockbusters.

This year's festival was particularly spectacular. It was in one of the stadium-seating theaters of the local cineplex (theater 3) and featured a film more than a year in the making and more than 30 minutes long called Explosive Graphite.

The thing I found most wonderful about this movie was the participation of so many adults of the parish. The choir director played the nefarious criminal mastermind (a real stretch for him, though the shades help), the youth activities director plays his henchwoman Janine, the children's and youth education director plays a rather forbidding secretary (heard on the phone in the clip below. Completely out of character, she does not call anyone angel).

But besides the church staff, there were adults who put themselves in service to this project. One former vestry member was the Stunt Coordinator. On Sunday, when asked about it, he said he'd always wanted to do that. In the video below, you see a former senior warden, first in the credits chasing someone down a hall, and then in the clip trundling a box labeled "explosives."

The thing that was so great about this was that this was not about adults having the youth participate in church events. It was about the youth having the adults participate in a church event.

I also have to say I'm impressed as all get-out at Spenser Linney and the other youth who took on this huge project and saw it through to completion. This was no small effort.

Enjoy the clip below. When it's posted, I'm going to put up the segment with the GREAT fight scene. Stay tuned....

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