Festival to showcase young filmmakers

Published 1:30 am Thursday, February 5, 2026

PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Film Festival will host Next Gen Films, a three-day event that will showcase films created by young filmmakers and for young audiences this weekend.

The festival will take place at Key City Public Theatre, 419 Washington St., which is partnering in hosting the event.

Programming will start at 7 p.m. Friday with a showcase of films created by young filmmakers.

Saturday will include two programs from the New York International Children’s Film Festival. Films for children 5 and older will start at 11:30 a.m. Films for children 8 and older will start at 2 p.m.

On Sunday, the 2013 documentary “If You Build It” will show at 3 p.m.

Friday’s and Sunday’s screenings are $10, and Saturday’s screenings are $3 for children and $5 for adults. Tickets can be purchased at next genfilmfest.eventive.org/schedule.

Friday’s Young Filmmakers Showcase will exclusively feature short films produced by young directors.

The selection of films were sourced from the National Film Festival for Talented Youth, Outside the Frame, Prodigy Camp and the Port Townsend High School Media Lab.

Prodigy Camp is an organization focused on giving young artists the support and training to produce film and music projects, Port Townsend Film Festival Executive Director Danielle McClelland said.

Films were shot at a Leavenworth retreat camp over the course of three hours. Student directors produced the scripts and gathered the props prior to the shoot. The short exercise gives students the opportunity to work with professional cinematographers, serious equipment and actors.

Seattle-based filmmaker Kayne Winter, 14, completed his first short film, “sMother,” while attending a camp. His film depicts a dramatic and funny escape of a boy from his oppressively hovering mother.

“I was talking to my parents about getting my first phone, and obviously they’re not helicopter parents, but it can feel like they’re not letting you have independence,” Winter said. “So I wrote a film about someone who had this really harsh, overprotective mom who is trying to grow up and find his own independence.”

While it’s a response to real-life frustration, the film is funny, off-beat and dramatic.

Winter wrote the script before the camp. While he was there, he had the opportunity to work with actor Julia Davis, actor David Kaiser and director of photography Hope Alexander. The latter two were attendees’ mentors.

With hopes of making more films in the future, Winter said the camp also led to him to engage more heavily with acting.

“The camp was, by far, like, the best week of my life,” Winter said. “It meant the world to me to have the opportunity to make a film.”

“Masked,” written and directed by Lauren Roger of Seattle, portrays a teenage girl whose struggle with inauthenticity manifests as a literal mask.

“I think sometimes teens can feel very inauthentic, especially towards their parents,” Roger, 15, said of the inspiration behind her first film. “I wanted to embody that in a metaphor.”

Much of the one-scene film depicts a tense conversation held with her mother wherein the mask begins to crack.

The film’s heavy subject matter is captured simply, powerfully and with great presence from lead actor Camille Blundell.

The film departed from the script when, during the camp, Roger and her mentor decided to change the scene’s arc, shifting the outcome significantly.

“Tougher: A Wrestling Documentary,” by Port Townsend High School graduates Bryce Harbin and Benja Greene, was completed over a year as an ambitious senior project.

The film follows Mason Iverson, Grady White and Grace Liske — Jefferson County student-athletes — whose dedication throughout a season leads them to compete in the state wrestling tournament at the Tacoma Dome.

Harbin said choosing the films’ subjects became a lesson in identifying how certain people might bring character to the documentary.

“(Iverson) lifting boulders and lifting 300 pounds or (White) having a couple-thousand-dollar Pokemon collection, or Gracie having all these farm animals and being a wrestling prodigy,” Harbin said.

In a high-stakes scene at the Tacoma Dome, Iverson must win the next match to be in the top three wrestlers at the state tournament.

The scene, set to Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” shows him properly slamming his opponent onto the mat. A moment later, Iverson is rolled over by his opponent, who ends up cradling him to end the match.

“It felt really bad,” Iverson said in the film.

Greene said he thinks exploring the emotions more, following the losses at state would have been interesting, as they were certainly present.

A teacher at the high school introduced Harbin and Greene to filmmaker Ward Serrill, who acted as a mentor in the process. Serrill gave the two insight into how to pull narrative threads out of what they captured, and Serrill watched their rough edits with them, offering feedback.

Serrill purchased a camera, requiring Harbin to sign his first contract, to care for the camera and to return it after completion of the film. Also, he loaned the team tripods and lights.

“I don’t know if we could have done it without Ward,” Greene said.

The festival, which will be attended by many of the young filmmakers, is an opportunity to connect with other interested youth in the region, McClelland said.

Engaging in filmmaking from a young age compels those who participate both to lead and to follow, they said.

Portland-based Outside the Frame, which will show several films at Friday’s showcase, is an organization that trains homeless and marginalized youth to be directors.

“(They work with youth on) how to become a director of a film and a director of your life,” McClelland said.

McClelland recalled being in charge of props for a live theater company at age 18. The role was full of lessons, and McClelland learned as they went.

“I, at 18, did not have any idea that that was how the world works,” they said. “If I needed a bow and arrow that wasn’t going to kill someone on stage, I needed to go find that.”

To see a full list of the films being screened through the weekend, visit tinyurl.com/3afyuufv.

________

Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.