Cinequest's Picture the Possibilities

The 2012 Cinequest Film Festival kicked off last night with lots of excitement! For those who may not know, Cinequest is a twelve day film festival in San Jose, CA that blends film lovers and film creators. What many don't know is that Cinequest has also created in a non-profit organization called Picture the Possibilities. Picture The Possibilities (PTP) is a dynamic program empowering youth from around the world to create films expressing visions of a better tomorrow in order to invoke change within their communities. I was fortunate enough to speak with PTP Coordinator, Marcela Villegas Castanon for Content magazine. Here is an excerpt from my article:

Do the students/youth develop all aspects of the film? Do they write the screenplays? Do they direct the actors? Do they manage the casting?
Usually, participants turn in story ideas about a month before the program. We review and read all the stories and then we select a topic that is prevalent in all the stories. Since there are 15-20 kids, and we can’t make 15-20 films. We choose about three to four stories. Then we start constructing a script from there.

The first few days, we lecture on how to create screenplays, on filmmaking and finally on editing. So, participants get lectures on the basic fundamentals of filmmaking. Then we go over the scripts we’ve selected and start the pre-production part of the process. We get the props we’ll need, we figure out who is going to be the actors, find our locations. This all happens in one day. Then we have three to four days for filming.

So, you make three to four films in a two-week period?
Yes, we do. Plus, we do a personal profile piece on each of the participants. We basically interview them and ask them to tell us about themselves, their community, about their home life, and about what they want to share with us. They each have an opportunity to express what they want through these profiles. So, we create 15-20 profile pieces and we do the three, sometimes five film pieces in two weeks.

To read the full interview please click here 

(Photography by Ezra Gordon)