Your World: Youth Environmental Film Festival to debut in May

During the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival in November, the Rehoboth Beach Film Society announced its newest education initiative, Your World: Youth Environmental Film Festival, confirmed for Sunday, May 5. The film society thanks its initial funding partners, Delmarva Power and Dogfish Head Brewery.

The call for film submissions will be announced in January. To view program guidelines and important deadlines, students may go to rehobothfilm.com/your-world-youth-environmental-film-festival.

A cornerstone of the film society’s mission is to promote the art of cinema through education and cultural enrichment programs, and to provide opportunities for film enthusiasts and diverse audiences across the community.

The central focus of the new environmental film festival is to engage middle and high school students by helping them become more informed about the environment that surrounds them, and facilitating a vibrant local filmmaking community in Southern Delaware. This capacity-building effort will bring opportunities for sparking interest in the art of filmmaking and establish a pipeline of future cinema artists in Sussex County.

“Creating a film topic around environmental impact was a natural fit for engaging students, given their proximity to the Mid-Atlantic shoreline, and agricultural and food processing businesses,” said Helen M. Chamberlin, film society executive director.

Although the State of Delaware lacks a formal film office, the RBFS, through its Cinema Art Theater and partnering with Delaware Division of the Arts, is working to bridge that gap.