Meet 2 young London filmmakers competing at the city’s film festival | CBC News

Young filmmakers are hoping to make their mark at this year’s Forest City Youth Film Festival (FCYFF) when it kicks off in October.

Organizers say it’s the most competitive selection process to-date, with 75 entries submitted across seven categories that include narrative, experimental and the newly added ‘music video’ category.

CBC London met up with two finalist from London who hope their storytelling will have impact. 

Mason Cline

Mason Cline, a grade 12 student at Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School, is a finalist in the narrative category for his short film The Angel in the Alleyway. 

“It’s about a homeless addict in downtown London and he is roaming the streets and searching for something that he is in need of. Once he finds the thing that he’s in need of, things start to get a little weird,” Cline said.

The teen filmmaker says his inspiration for this story came from his daily walks in downtown London.

“With downtown London, there tends to be a pretty big drug problem. I wanted to make a movie about that but in a happier and less gritty way.”

Cline says he knew he wanted to get into filmmaking after he watched Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom in his early teenage years.

Jocelyn Deng

Jocelyn Deng, a Londoner currently studying at Carleton University, is a finalist in the experimental category for her 90 second film A Field of Acne Beans.

Her film shows images that she says sheds light on the negative associations people have to acne.

Deng says she’s had acne since childhood and wants to change the way people perceive it. She found inspiration from her Asian culture to help guide her in putting this project together.

“It comes from a homophone in the Mandarin language, which is that the word pimple and the word bean sound the same, which I find very humorous. So it was a pun I would hear my mom say all the time,” Deng said.

“Honestly, my film is essentially a pile of everything that reminds me of acne, and I try to point out similarities between acne and beans, like the way they’re both bumpy and they both involve dirt, water and growth.”

Deng has loved the art of storytelling for as long as she can remember. 

“Most of all, I love storytelling and reading and perceiving stories. For example, as a kid, I would watch the same films over and over again, such as 101 Dalmatians,” she said. 

Where to watch

The FCYFF started in 2019 with the aim of educating and supporting high school students with an interest in filmmaking.

The festival is on October 21st at Wolf Performance Hall and can be streamed.