We caught up with Year 13 pupil, Ava Pearson, following her recent achievements in film. In last week’s Whole School Assembly, the Headmaster recognized these achievements and today we learn more about Ava’s new film with the Young Film Academy, Strings.
Strings is the latest film to come from the Young Film Academy’s Project Paradiso. Project Paradiso is a prestige project that offers a select group of YFA’s most promising students aged 16-20 the chance to create a short film in a cinematic location in Sicily, Italy. It's an ambition project that combines educational training with a real-world film industry opportunity – offering participants the experience of a lifetime.
For Ava, she has loved films for as long as she can remember and has been making them for the past seven years, starting when she was about 10 years old.
She says:
‘It has certainly been a learning curve, with my first couple of films being very odd! I got into it though because I love writing, and I was always trying to find new mediums for telling stories and just fell in love with the filmmaking process.’
On Strings, Ava says:
‘Strings is a horror film that I co-directed. It was filmed in Sicily in February over the course of a week, and I was so lucky to work with such an amazing cast and crew, all of whom are immensely talented.’
Now that shooting has been wrapped, the film edited and post-produced to the highest industry standards, it has been submitted to festivals internationally. Since then, the film is already doing well! It has won ‘Best European Film’ at Absurd Film Festival, ‘Best Student Film’ at Modonie Film Festival, and ‘Best Young Director’ at Monza Film Festival.
With Strings winning awards, Ava says:
‘It's been really rewarding to see all our hard work paying off with film festival screenings and awards! My dream is to do this for a living someday.’
A massive well done to Ava and the rest of the crew who worked on Strings. We look forward to seeing more of Ava’s work in future!
