Barstow attends the UCM film festival.

A number of Barstow students, along with Mr. and Mrs. Payne, Profe Jones, Profe Marvin, and Madame Hyvrard, attended the University of Central Missouri Foreign Language Film Festival. Barstow won a film-festival record-breaking 67 awards, including the highest award in the festival. 

UCM (as nicknamed by those intimately acquainted with it) is located in Warrensburg, Missouri, which is around an hour away from The Barstow School. Barstow students arrived in three sleek “The Barstow School” branded buses (and a van), and were welcomed with a jolly variety of activities.

“The UCM film festival was a very excellent and cool experience. The campus was very nice and the experience was very fun,” said Rex Parker ‘27, who created a Chinese heist movie. 

UCM hosted a film festival within the film festival, “the Flash Film Contest”, as it was called, in which participants were given an hour to create a film with a number of prompts and required actions, including sneezing, a lost object, a sock, dancing, and more.

There was a Starbucks in the central chamber and student-made films playing in a number of classrooms for several hours. 

There were also workshops, in which students learned interesting facts about the filming process. “I found the workshop thoroughly interesting. The lamps in the room were also really cool” said anonymous Barstow students who attended Dr. Mark von Schlemmer’s “Filming the Hollywood Way- Directing for the Edit”.

A readily unknown fact about Barstow is that, on field trip days, they pack everyone a lunch. Barstow students chewed their sandwiches (or didn’t, there are plenty of sandwich-hating chaps around) or purchased their lunch at one of the many on-campus restaurants (including a sushi restaurant and a chicken restaurant).

A happy fact about the field trip was that if one wanted nothing of anything, they were not forced to go anywhere. They could wander the campus at will, or sit on the floor and stare at the wall. There was an enormous trivia contest, with trivia about German, Spanish, Chinese, and French speaking countries and culture, and a raffle, which made people quite happy.

“The UCM film festival was a great place to bond with my friends, make memories and be able to support others in their winnings!” said Olivia Taffe ‘26, who created a Chinese murder film.

Then came the awards. There were an estimated 120+ films in the festival. The highest award in the festival, First Place for Best Overall Film Across ALL Languages, was won by Barstow students Phoebe Martin ‘24, Rian Jacobs ‘24, and Helton Walker ‘24 for their film, Doña Quijote. They won six awards in all:

1. Best Advanced Spanish Film, 3^rd Place
2. Best Advanced Spanish Comedy
3. Best Overall Spanish Comedy
4. Best Use of Language in an Advanced Spanish Film
5. Best Overall Spanish Film, 3^rd Place
6. Best Overall Film Across All Languages

Other Award Winners: 

Ethan Wood won eight awards for his film, 创世故事 (“Creation Story”):

1. Best Intermediate Chinese Film
2. Best Chinese Drama
3. Best Technical Achievement in a Chinese Film
4. Most Original Chinese Film, 2^nd Place
5. Best Chinese Script
6. Best Use of Language in an Intermediate Chinese Film
7. Best Overall Chinese Film
8. Best Overall Drama Across All Languages

Pierce Farinelli, Aidan Lawlor, and Paranjay Sharma won eight awards for their film, A+ es para amistad:

1. Best Advanced Spanish Film
2. Best Advanced Spanish Mystery
3. Best Overall Spanish Mystery
4. Best Ensemble Acting in a Spanish Film
5. Best Technical Achievement in a Spanish Film
6. Most Original Spanish Film
7. Best Spanish Script, 2^nd Place
8. Best Overall Spanish Film

Rachel Jacobs won five awards for her film, 最后的气球 (“The Last Balloon”):

1. Best Elementary Chinese Film
2. Best Chinese Drama, 2^nd Place
3. Best Use of Language in an Elementary Chinese Film
4. Best Technical Achievement in a Chinese Film, 2^nd Place
5. Best Overall Chinese Film, 2^nd Place

Dylan Markey, Nithin Guduputi, and Chetan Thomas won five awards for their film, La bendición de la pantera:

1. Best Advanced Spanish Film, 2^nd Place
2. Best Advanced Spanish Drama
3. Best Overall Spanish Drama
4. Best Spanish Script
5. Best Overall Spanish Film, 2^nd Place 

Devarshi Desai, Michael Mou, and Finnian Waldron won five awards for their film, La Rivière:

1. Best Advanced French Film, 2^nd Place
2. Best Advanced French Mystery, 2^nd Place
3. Most Original French Film, 2^nd Place
4. Best Use of Language in an Advanced French Film
5. Best Overall French Film, 3^rd Place

Darin Goodman, Ethan Jiang, and Elliott Osman won four awards for their film, 孤独的钢琴家 (“The Lonely Pianist”):

1. Best Elementary Chinese Film, 2^nd Place
2. Most Original Chinese Film
3. Best Use of Language in an Elementary Chinese Film 
4. Best Ensemble Acting in a Chinese Film, 2^nd Place

Alison Brodrick and Anita Mohan won three awards for their film, 擒王 (“Checkmate”):

1. Best Advanced Chinese Film
2. Best Chinese Mystery
3. Best Overall Chinese Film, 3rd Place

Geordie Waldman, Evan Doskey, and Anders Hwang won three awards for their film, 犯罪生活 (“Life of Crime”):

1. Best Chinese Comedy
2. Best Ensemble Acting in a Chinese Film
3. Best Advanced Chinese Film, 2^nd Place

Emily Smith, Adi Rastogi, Charlotte Turner, and Sarim Rashid won three awards for their film, Querido Duda:

1. Best Elementary Spanish Film
2. Best Elementary Spanish Mystery
3. Best Ensemble Acting in a Spanish Film, 3^rd Place

Norah Culver won two awards for her film, Las ladronas: 

1. Best Elementary Spanish Comedy, 3^rd Place
2. Best Use of Language in an Elementary Spanish Film

Lilly Kennedy Gregg, Izzy Parr, and Maggie Toppass won two awards for their film, Dear Raphaëlle: 

1. Best Advanced French Drama
2. Best French Script, 2^nd Place

Maxwell Moore, Michael Yagan, and Connor Lucido won two awards for their film, 回头的路 (“The Road Back”):

1. Best Chinese Script, 2^nd Place
2. Best Advanced Chinese Film, 3^rd Place

Rex Parker, Quincy Stribling, Ezra Jacobs, and Dhruv Kapur won two awards for their film, 忠诚 (“Loyalty”): 

1. Best Chinese Mystery, 2^nd Place
2. Best Elementary Chinese Film, 3^rd Place

Will Keidel, Cyrus Shaikh, Owen Snyder, and Sunny Gandahari won two awards for their film, El atraco: 

1. Best Advanced Spanish Mystery, 3^rd Place
2. Best Ensemble Acting in a Spanish Film, 3^rd Place

Kimberly Nguyen, Zoey Hrabe, and Maya Theobald won an award for their film, 拖鞋 (“Flip Flops”): 

1. Best Use of Language in an Advanced Chinese Film

Haddie Schedler won an award for her film, 永恒转会 (“Eternal Return”): 

1. Best Intermediate Chinese Film, 2^nd Place

Avani Lakkireddy, Lasya Maganti, Izzi Osman, and Amara Patel won an award for their film, Homecoming:

1. Most Original Spanish Film, 2^nd Place

David Guldin, David Prier, and Sam Christifano won an award for their film, En mi camino:

1. Best Advanced Spanish Drama, 2^nd Place

Shya Zeldin and Grayson Passanisi won an award for their film, El KO:

1. Best Super Short Spanish Film, 2^nd Place

Alise Wood and Atra Biria won an award for their film, 夜半审判 (“Midnight Confessions”):

1. Best Intermediate Chinese Film, 3^rd Place 

Kiley Bourke, Jack Cuezze, and Ava Levin won an award for their film, La decisión:

1. Best Advanced Spanish Drama, 3^rd Place

Said Mr. Payne, Middle and Upper School Chinese teacher, ​​”Please help us congratulate our Barstow World Language students, who succeeded in the very difficult task of making movies in a language other than their mother tongue!”