Future Filmmakers: Youth Curators

K-12 STEAM education

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Media Arts were incorporated into the California Arts Framework in 2018, but under 10% of students in Los Angeles are participating in this curriculum due to underfunding and poor administration of existing funds. Additionally, the pandemic made more visible entrenched disparities, with devastating impacts on Los Angeles’s most vulnerable youth that are still seen today. This has generated a greater demand for the academic benefits and vital social-emotional outlet of creative expression that media arts curriculum can provide. According to the 2024 Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, LA County accounts for approximately 1/3 of employment in the U.S. film and television industry. Teaching students about filmmaking and curation will help them develop translatable skills such as creativity, leadership and teamwork, and actively prepare them to step into booming industries and well-paying jobs that exist right in their backyard.

Film Independent (Fi) and Inner-City Arts to present Future Filmmakers: Youth Curators (FFYC). FFYC will be a free summer program for up to 25 high-school-age youth from underserved communities to gain an exciting opportunity to learn about film and film careers through helping to curate a showcase of youth-created work. FFYC will consist of twice-weekly two-hour-long sessions on Inner-City Arts’ campus in Los Angeles over two weeks. Fi’s Film Education Manager will lead the sessions, with experienced curators and programmers participating as guest speakers. Topics will include how to critique a film, representation in film, jobs in the film industry, and how a film festival works. Students will watch and critique film entries from youth filmmakers and collaborate to help curate a showcase. Students will also take a daylong fieldtrip to Fi, where they will learn more about independent film and enjoy a film in the Fi theater. FFYC will culminate in the Future Filmmakers Showcase: youth will gain further inspiration through a day of screenings, networking and mentorship. A group of up to 300 youth curators, featured youth creators and additional youth from across Los Angeles County, plus their families, will attend the public, free screening of films, attend a special mentorship luncheon with Mentors (Fi Fellows-professional filmmakers who have gone through Fi’s artist development programs) and attend a keynote speech by a notable filmmaker discussing their career and craft.

This series of carefully cultivated active learning opportunities will help students develop life skills such as critical thinking, leadership and collaboration, while providing them with social-emotional creative experiences led by experienced arts educators in a safe and nurturing environment. We will consider this project a success if we are able to give Los Angeles youth the tools to foster their creative abilities through filmmaking, as well as to improve their knowledge of what career opportunities are available in the film industry. Ultimately, our goal is for FFYC will empower them to activate their artistic voices to share their unique vision and insights with the world. Additionally, this project will give additional Los Angeles youth and their families an opportunity to experience high-quality art created by youth from different communities. In the long term, we hope to seek additional funding to expand this program to serve a larger number of Los Angeles youth each year.

In 2023, we worked with 10 high school students from underserved communities to curate a showcase featuring 16 short films created by 27 students. Participants were selected from Inner-City Arts’ Institutes Program (youth population: 92% BIPOC, 23% English Language Learners, 65% with household income <$45K), which provides students with multi-disciplinary out-of-school arts workshops. Participants got to connect with many professional filmmakers who came from similar backgrounds as their own, showing the students that they too can have a successful career in the media arts. The students loved participating in this program and learned a lot about filmmaking and film careers. Many student filmmakers and families also expressed their gratitude and were quite moved by the films and experience of seeing their films included in a theatrical showcase. We are repeating the program in 2024. We currently receive state funding for FFYC, but budgets have been cut and funding priorities shifted.

Inner-City Arts’ mission is to engage young people in the creative process to shape a society of creative, confident, and collaborative individuals. Inner-City Arts was founded in 1989 in response to the devastating budget cuts of the late 1970s that had eliminated arts instruction from Los Angeles’ public schools, which disproportionately affected youth from historically and systemically under-resourced communities. Their programming promotes equity in Los Angeles communities by providing youth with arts education in more than 20 different art forms and an arts internship program, as well as professional development to arts educators. Inner-City Arts staff will manage the outreach and application process to select youth for this program, which will take place on their downtown LA campus.