As home to the Sundance Film Festival, for now, what would Park City be without their own Miner Film Festival for its high school students?
Park City High School will host its annual Miner Film Festival on Friday, May 10, and the event first began in the 2000s to gather the community for an evening of laughter, admiration and applause as the student films are displayed on the big screen of the Eccles Theater. Admission is free, but donations are accepted to help support the Film Program at PCHS.
The films will also be live streamed on the PCHS Live YouTube page, youtube.com/live/vFwmvqaquok.
The film program at Park City High School, home of the Eccles Center, is directed by Kyle Fish, who teaches a variety of film classes that cover different formats from television broadcasting to advanced cinematic arts.
While the Miner Film Festival is a culmination of all that the students have worked on throughout the school year, film students and non-film students are eligible to submit works.
Entrants undergo an application process in order to be shown at the Miner Film Festival, and once accepted, they show their films in the lecture hall after school one day for a viewing by Fish, film students and other participants, who provide feedback on the filmmakers’ personal spreadsheet.
Afterwards, everyone gives their opinion on which films should be shown during the festival, with Fish having the final say.
Students work all year on their films to be shown in this end-of-year festival, and the films have the opportunity to win certain awards.
Some of these awards include Best Actor, Best Audio Design, Audience Choice and the Maddux Award, which is named after the founder of the Park City High School film program Chris Maddux, who passed away in 2011.
Maddux’s legacy is carried on as students continue to use their young creative minds to produce masterpieces for this festival.
Some of the finalists moving on to this year’s festival are “LDS: The Secrets Beyond,” “Mediators: Miami Mayhem,” “Storm,” “Monument” and “The Rot.” (See list below for full lineup)
- “LDS: The Secrets Beyond” is a comedic mockumentary that a group of students created to poke fun at a few of the practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as the career of being a missionary. It follows an interviewer and his experience while observing two missionaries as they make their way through a neighborhood, door to door.
- “Mediators: Miami Mayhem” by Chase Campbell and Zach Minter, is the second film of the “Mediators” cop-thriller series. The first film, which followed two cops — Dick X and Chase McCord — on their adventures together in catching criminals won several awards at the 2023 Miner Film Festival, and “Mediators: Miami Mayhem” is about those same two cops as they work to overcome challenges in the dark world of illegal activity.
- “Storm” is a short, animated film that follows a small critter and its adventure through a thunderstorm.
- “Monument” is a classic ski-edit created by Park City High School senior Carson Lolli who has been a part of the film program for several years now.
- “The Rot” was created by a junior student, Seamus Martin, who casted and directed the film, which was made from an original script he wrote.
The Miner Film Festival gives students the opportunity to showcase their creative work, and the event provides attendees with a better understanding of the skills and accomplishments of those within the film programs, as well as an evening of entertainment and community building.
This is a very exciting event for the film program and other students at Park City High School, and it is a demonstration of the true time and effort put into the fine arts in Park City.
Miner Film Festival 2024 films and filmmakers
- “Monument” by Carson Lolli
- “Toasting Bagels with Harper Nagel: Sundance Edition” by Carson Lolli, Harper Nagel and Zachary Minter
- “The Mediators 2: Miami Mayhem” and “Fish & Friends” by Chase Campbell, Zachary Minter, Carson Lolli, Harper Nagel, Maisey Mansson and Nash Clevenger
- “Van Man,” “Paranoia” and “Steezus” by Zachary Minter
- “Stuck on Static” and “I Want Watermelon” by Kate Bertha and Charlotte Ball
- “Rotary” by Garret Leaf
- “Beyond the Storm” by Katie Olson
- “LDS: The Secrets Beyond” and “‘O9” by Quin Pulham, Drew Hoots, Nate Hadar, and Hugh Hutchison.
- “American Sigma” by Dylan Rifkin, Declan Poe and Josh Sharkey
- “Food for Thought” and “Turn Out the Light” by Sage Adler
- “The Pit” by River McFadden, Huxley Dosher, Axel Enroe and Luke McNally
- “I Will Survive” by Sebastian Bodily and Sean McKone
- “The Rot” by Seamus Martin, Brandon Paupore and Maren Simon