|Nov 9, 2022|  Sarah Yeoh

An exceptional event occurred during fall break. Times Square in New York projected five nominations for the Teen Indie Awards from Valor.

It was a special time for these students in the advanced film class.

For those unfamiliar with this event, the Teen Indie Awards are coordinated by the All- American High School Film Festival. The festival is located in New York. This festival hosts young film and media art enthusiasts to be recognized and respected for their hard work as young aspiring artists. The festival first began as a film club founded by a teacher and a student in the fall of 2003.

This year Valor Alum Zane Kalani earned two points of honor. His first film achieved him, the award for best comedy, the highest award anyone could receive at the festival for his film, “The Sinister Tale of Scooby Burger“. A film that would get anyone laughing. The film takes you into the shoes of Sean Bradshaw who is trying to get a job after he was fired from Scooby Burger. 

This film also acquired three awards from the Colorful Colorado Film Festival for Youth. These awards are, the Colorful Personality Award (2022), the Best Comedy award (2021), and the Breckenridge Film Festival award (2022).

This film production began in 2020 as an Advanced Film Class project. It took six weekends during the fall of 2021 for it to be produced.

Apart from this award, Kalijan was also given the Audience Award for his other humorous film, “Ok, Goodbye”. The video starts off with him telling viewers that he is graduating high school and quickly switches to a lawyer going through a love-life mental breakdown while conducting an advertisement for his law firm.

This started out as a conservatory project during his senior year. This time his hard efforts earned him a $110k scholarship to Biola University, where he is furthering his studies in visual art and film production. Biola University is a private Christian university in La Mirada, California.

At the end of the day, it was not only Kalani putting in the blood and sweat, the advanced film class and some faculty contributed greatly as well. Now let’s give a well-deserved round of applause to everyone who contributed to these two excellently comical films.