2021 Summer Animation Program Student Meet & Greet

On Saturday, May 22, we kicked off our 2021 Summer Animation Program with a student meet & greet held in a beautiful outdoor garden at our partner SoLa Impact’s Beehive Los Angeles.

Surrounded by beautiful red-brick warehouses constructed in 1919 (the former home of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.), it was a perfect sunny day to welcome our largest student cohort to date! In addition to providing students an opportunity to meet their classmates and Film2Future staff, our class of emerging filmmakers spent the afternoon broken up into groups doing team-building exercises, creative workshops and even had professional headshots taken.

To help prepare our incoming class for this year’s intensive, students had the opportunity to listen and interact with some fantastic speakers throughout the day.

Film2Future Advisory Council Member Emi Lea Kamemoto spent time with our students addressing the concept of identifiers, breaking students up into “identity corners” to discuss how we choose to identify ourselves and others. Long-time Film2Future supporter Romke de Haan inspired our student groups with details of his personal and professional journey in media and cybersecurity spaces, exploring the various careers that a program like Film2Future can lead to.

We are thrilled that Film2Future Alumni Fernando Araujo and Iyeh Malkepour have joined us this year as Team Captains to assist incoming students throughout the program. Our friends at Crafty TJ Catering Services, run by chef Tosha Johnson-Williams, provided students with a tasty breakfast and lunch between the enlightening conversations. Brittany Druker from The Weekly Mac graciously provided delicious macarons for the festivities. A special thank you goes to Sherri Francois at SoLa Impact Beehive for hosting this event and to Film2Future Board Director Barrett Garese for his help making sure our meet & greet ran smooth.

To our staff and volunteers, we could not have done this without you. Thank you for helping us celebrate our new class of emerging filmmakers and making this such a memorable event.