Reel Exposure 2020: A Digital Spectacle
“Art is a way to make things feel real. Artists infuse their own personal views and experiences within what they make and it’s only through their experience that you can understand other perspectives. And a lot of times if you’re removed from that situation or that perspective, art is the only way that you can come to fully understand that situation, that perspective, and I think it’s for that reason that diversity in all manners of art is important for perspective. All the way through the line. So, it makes social change more real and physical and tangible.” – Chris St. Lawrence, director of “Words Apart,” during the 2020 Reel Exposure Winners Q&AThe Art Effect wrapped up last month with our annual Reel Exposure International Teen Film and Photography Festival, but this year things were a little different. Due to COVID-19 precautions our festival was initially pushed back from our first festival date and grew into a three day weekend event with different short film screenings each night online, a virtual gallery experience, and an awards ceremony and Q & A with the festival winners on the final night of the festival. This year’s digital Reel Exposure took place May 29-31 and ended up being viewed by nearly 750 people from 10 different countries.
“Last year, which was my freshman year, I started taking a photography class and I really found a passion for photography and found that it can be more than taking pictures and you can actually tell stories through the photos.” -Audrey Basham, photographer of “Our Biggest Ties To The World Before They Snap,” during the 2020 Reel Exposure Winners Q&AReel Exposure International Teen Film and Photography Festival showcased work from around the world and some of our winners like Oisín-Tomás Ó Raghallaigh and Julian Schmiederer stayed up until the wee hours of the morning in Northern Ireland and Austria to share their thoughts and processes in the Sunday Q&A session with the available festival winners emceed by The Art Effect’s festival hosts Mary Ellen Iatropoulos and Naajia Villa on Zoom. Two more winners were announced on Monday, June 1, when we tallied up the final votes in our Film & Photo Audience Choice Awards. The film showcases from each night were available for viewing through the end of the festival, but our 3D digital gallery exhibition of photographs, created by The Art Effect alumni Imyra Maxwell, is still open for viewing. Click here to view it on a mobile device or click here if you are browsing through a laptop or personal computer.
Reel Exposure 2020’s Film Winners
Grounding — by Oisín-Tomás Ó Raghallaigh
*First Place Winner – Film*
Pressure — by Julian Pixel Schmiederer
*Second Place – Film*
Worlds Apart — by Chris St. Lawrence
*Third Place – Film*
Writer’s Block — by Jake Tannenbaum
*Audience Choice Award – Film*
Reel Exposure 2020’s Photo Winners Monotone City — by Sebastian Hudson *First Place Winner – Photography* Etchings Scrawled Across a Pretty Face — by Julia Rossillon *Second Place – Photography* Our Biggest Ties To The World Before They Snap — by Audrey Basham *Third Place – Photography* Folk Artists of Peru — by Leonardo Rinaldi *Audience Choice Award – Photography* Special thanks to Reel Exposure hosts Naajia Renee Villa & Mary Ellen Iatropoulos, the Hudson Valley Additive Manufacturing Center (HVAMC) at SUNY New Paltz, who printed this year’s 3D Reel Exposure trophies, and to all our dedicated Reel Exposure judges this year: Jesse Brown, Beth Davenport, Stephen Honicki, Thomas Pearson, John Rizzo, Camilo Rojas, Kevin Sheffield, and Shawn Strong.
Reel Exposure is made possible, in part, through funding from Dutchess Tourism, administered by Arts Mid-Hudson and support from Dyson Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Vassar Brothers Institute Donor Advised Fund of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, and FairGame Arts Grant.
