Teen View Returns As An Opportunity For Students At The Nantucket Film Festival

Teen View, the Nantucket Film Festival’s youth educational program, is focusing on writing this year, returning as a weekend-long intensive program for students entering 8th through 11th grade.

“Storytelling is not going anywhere. Narrative is the way we experience our lives and the world,” instructor Annie Howell said. “This is not just for people who want to become filmmakers. Storytelling is kind of everywhere.”

Signups are available here through June 19th. The program runs June 20th-21st from 12:00 - 3:00 p.m. at the Nantucket Atheneum.

Howell is an award-winning filmmaker and professor best known for co-writing the critically acclaimed Yellow Rose, featuring Broadway star Eva Noblezada. Howell, who currently teaches at both New York University’s Tisch School and the City College of New York, has been a film professor for many years and has had two of her films screened at the Nantucket Film Festival.

She said that her focus is on building confidence and sparking excitement in the students who participate in the program.

“It's about building confidence as a storyteller. I would want to instill either a spark of excitement or new confidence,” she said. “We will do some exercises, and a little bit of games and play. I really view writing as play. It's kind of similar to acting in that regard. It's kind of about exploration.”

Howell also emphasized the importance of storytelling in daily life, even for people who are not interested in filmmaking, highlighting college application essays and the importance of cultivating a unique personal identity.

“We're going to focus on the personal,” she said. “I'm kind of taking inspiration from the ways in which the film industry is shifting…there's such power in the individual creator right now.”

The Nantucket Film Festival is presenting Teen View in partnership with the Nantucket Atheneum. This is the 25th year of the program, which has undergone several iterations over its history.