Welcome to the new home of the Eugene Children's Film Festival!

In the Spring of 2019, following a successful five year run, the Academic Achievement Center (AAC) Foundation asked Oak Hill School to become the sponsors of the Festival. We were happy to accept. We look forward to many years of supporting the Festival and to helping it to thrive and grow.

The next annual Festival will be held on June 6, 2020 on the campus of Oak Hill School.

Contest Rules

For this year's Festival, we are introducing a fun, new and exciting idea. We are going to incorporate a common theme for all submissions. Each film entry must incorporate the theme of Family somehow in its film, and we hope this promotes discussions at home, and adds to the excitement of making movies. We are in hopes that this theme will inspire young film makers to explore all the many ways in which the idea of family can be expressed. We hope that this challenge will help film makers think creatively, have fun with their discoveries and, that collectively, the festival will provide an interesting program for its audience. We have tried to make the theme broad enough to prompt critical thinking and creative problem solving, as students decide how to incorporate the idea of Family into their film projects.

We have also made some changes to the categories and guidelines. This year, we will have four categories. Entries from Young Filmmakers (Grade 2-5/Age 7-10) may be to up to 3 minutes long and should be "G" rated; entries from Middle School students (Grade 6-8/Age 11-13) may be up to 5 minutes long and should be G or PG rated; and entries from High School students (Grade 9-12/Age 14-18) may be up to 10 minutes long and should be PG-13 rated or below. We will also accept films of up to 30 minutes from Student groups of any age. Our intention is that all of the films be appropriate for children, although some may not be right for every child or family.

For all submissions, students must be the “Filmmaker” of the film that they submit. That is, in the opinion of the judges, they must be the visionary and the driving force behind the film. Filmmakers of all ages may use adults and others to help them with the writing, acting, filming, sound, lighting, editing or any other aspect of the production, so long as they are the Director of the film.

Submissions will be open on March 20th, 2020.

Instructions for submitting your film coming soon.

The deadline for submission will be May 16, 2020.

Partner

The Eugene Children's Film Festival (ECFF) is seeking partnerships with organizations that promote creative expression in the arts for children throughout Oregon. Specifically, ECFF is looking for partners who would benefit from joint collaboration in promoting video and film making among elementary and high school students.

On June 6, 2020, the ECFF will be held on the beautiful Oak Hill School campus, providing a unique opportunity to not only showcase the ECFF but also our partner organizations. Partners will be encouraged to offer film-related workshops (for example: storyboarding, casting, stage fighting, blocking, sound, lighting, editing, and so on.) This community arts “Expo” will provide the opportunity for families to move between booths, getting a taste of different skills and techniques offered by each organization. After the Community Arts Expo, the Film Festival will feature the top 10 films submitted to the ECFF competition followed by an awards ceremony.

If your organization would be interested in partnering with ECFF and participating in our Community Arts Expo, please reply to this email. We seek to establish 10-20 partnerships with other community arts organizations to promote the ECFF and our partners.

Learn

Stay tuned for information about our upcoming classes in filmmaking offered through the Oak Hill School "Summer on the Hill" and "Super Summer" programs. And if you have ideas or suggestions for classes (or if you are interested in teaching!) - please contact us!

2019 Montage 5th Annual Eugene Children's Film Festival.mp4

2019 Eugene Children's Film Festival

The year of 2019 hosted the 5th annual Eugene Children's Film Festival. The judges received about thirty unique films to critique.

The selection of the top ten films were the following:

  1. Granny's War by Jasmine Ko and Nathan Ko
  2. M.P.I. by Thomas Isenhart
  3. Our Forest — One Family's Legacy by John Baldwin
  4. Stonebrook Academy - Oak Hill School Young Company
  5. Live your story by Lisa de Paula
  6. Life of a Tree by Effie Larson
  7. Oregon's Forests — Editing Challenge by Keith Todd
  8. Oregon's Forests — Editing Challenge by Jack Swanson
  9. First by Elijah Reed
  10. Stickman's Misadventure by Carter Willis