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Article Launched: 07/31/2005 01:00:00 AM

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FilmFest camp's lessons go beyond moviemaking

By Jack Cox Denver Post Staff Writer

Carbondale - For Vanessa Murillo, a diminutive 13year-old with an eye for a good story, the Aspen FilmFest's summer video camp for Latino youth is not just about camera angles and editing techniques.

"Not only are we teaching basic skills, we're building a community so that over the long term, they will have a support system around storytelling and mediamaking."

Kris Sorenson, director of Aspen FilmFest's video camp, with student Daniel Saporita, 12 (Special to The Denver / Ed Kosmicki )

It also is about an aspect of documentary filmmaking that is not always apparent in the end result: teamwork.

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8/3/05 10:21 PM

"Sometimes you have to be in the film because you're interviewing, and you need help taping from someone who's good at using the camera.

Sometimes you need help with the editing or the soundtrack," she says.

"Being in this shows me that if you work together, you get things done faster."

The free workshop, funded in part by grants from Time Warner and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is just one of many ways in which nonprofit groups in Aspen work to nourish the community's support system.

Their overall aim is to better the lives of the working-class families who keep the resort's lodges and restaurants humming, but who live mostly "down valley" in Carbondale, Basalt, Glenwood Springs and other towns along the Roaring Fork and Colorado rivers.

"People associate us with festivals where you buy tickets," says FilmFest's Carol Peachey. "But we have this whole other aspect. And the interesting thing is, all the nonprofits in Aspen have this huge educational component."

The video camp, held in mid-July, pulls in about 18 teens and preteens for a two-week session in donated space at the Carbondale Community School.

Kris Sorenson, the director, says the lessons it instills resonate far beyond the makeshift "studio" where the students sometimes put in 12 hours a day - and where all their films are screened at a final session attended by their siblings and parents, many of whom do not speak English.

"Not only are we teaching basic skills, we're building a community so that over the long term,

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8/3/05 10:21 PM

they will have a support system around storytelling and media-making," says Sorenson, who outfits the kids with a carload of rented cameras and personal computers she hauls to Colorado from her base in St. Paul, Minn.

"Eventually, over four or five years, one of them will

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buy a good-quality video camera and share it, and someone will become an adult video artist."

Vanessa, who wants to be a doctor or a lawyer when she grows up, has signed up for the program each summer since it was first offered in 2003.

Last year she made a compelling video about "Life Behind Bars," complete with a booking scene in which a cooperative sheriff's deputy played the role of an inmate. http://www.denverpost.com/style/ci_2892306

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8/3/05 10:21 PM

This year she focused her efforts on a more personal film about her cousin Lucy's upcoming "quincea単era," a coming- of-age celebration held for Hispanic girls when they turn 15.

Like most of the others, Vanessa probably won't become a filmmaker when she grows up; she's leaning more toward being a doctor or a lawyer.

But the experience has nurtured her creative voice and boosted her confidence, she indicates.

"This year I think I'm getting the hang of it," she says.

Another repeat participant, Brianna Rhodes, a 12year-old from New Castle, used a Canon GL1 to shoot DVD footage documenting the experiences of Hispanic immigrants.

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"Besides all the basic camera stuff, you learn to build friendships with with people you don't go to school with or don't know. It's really fun," she says.

Brianna's parents, Marlin and Monica Rhodes, who drive 45 minutes each way to work at office jobs in Carbondale, say the program has boosted their daughter's confidence and helped keep her occupied during the long summer vacation.

"It was like her first summer job, so to speak," says her father. "It gives some structure to her life."

Staff writer Jack Cox can be reached at 303-8201785 or jcox@denverpost.com.

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