Granite Youth Alliance Hosts 11th Annual Film Festival

Student Voices Amplified Through Film

The red carpet was rolled out for the 11th Annual Granite Youth Alliance Film Festival on Sunday, June 9th at The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Hundreds gathered to view a year's worth of planning, pitching and developing short films that addressed critcial issues like mental health, underage drinking and vaping.

Granite United Way is proud to support this programming which engages a number of local schools. Students have an opportunity to share their peer-to-peer perspective in topics that are important to them and the health of our community. They pitch their ideas, gather funding for their project, write scripts, direct and edit their short films. The films were screened in front of hundreds of supporters, friends and families at The Music Hall.

Following the screening of each film, students were invited to the stage to answer questions on how they chose their topic, why the issues were important and how they will continue to share their film with students and other audiences.

This year's entries included:

Vaping in One Vile ~ Somersworth Middle School

Be Help, Get Help, Be Strong! ~ Raymond Coalition for Youth

Is it Worth It? ~ Epping Middle School Student Leadership Team

I'll Put the Window Down ~ Dover Youth to Youth

Life is Tough When You Take a Puff ~ Raymond Coaliation for Youth

Guilty as Charged ~ Dover Youth to Youth

Watching ~ Seabrook Middle School Y2Y

At the conclusion of the event, Mark Pruett, Directorof Data Services & Cinema Curator at The Music Hall, announced that the film 'Watching' from the Seabrook Middle School Y2Y would be entered in to New Hampshire Film Festival being held in October.

Special thanks to sponsors of the event including The Music Hall, Novocure, Northeast Credit Union, Seacoast Public Health Network, Service Credit Union and Beth Israel Lahey Health Exeter Hospital.