It goes something like this. Seven years running, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has made dreams come true with a themed student competition that pairs industry professionals with student filmmakers. Appropriately, this year’s theme is Twenty-Five.

Final Draft and Business First Bank sponsored the competition with The Riordan Foundation providing a grant. To start, both high school and college student writers submit a ten page sample of their best work be it stage play, screenplay or short story. Finalists are assigned a storyline and provided a mentor in the industry to assist with the creative process.

The filmmaking competition requires finished products. Each school has a representative. Student filmmakers submit five minute shorts or five minute clips from a feature they’ve directed to these reps. From this group, five submissions are selected by these representatives and then presented to the festival judges who know the films only by numbers, no names or school affiliations are given.

Screenwriter finalists are then teamed up with filmmaking finalists at a press conference making five pairs of high school students and five pairs of college students, hence the first “10" from each category.  Participating schools are Santa Barbara High School, San Marcos High School, Brooks Institute, Santa Barbara City College, Westmont, University of California Santa Barbara.

Students have “10” days to create a “10” minute film. On Sunday, February 14th The Lobero Theater will host screenings of all the films at 1:00 pm where the films will be judged for both screenwriting and filmmaking criteria. All participating finalists will receive a copy of the screenwriting software Final Draft. The four winners will have their films screened at the Arlington Theater on Closing Night along with a $500 gift certificate for Samy’s Camera.

Screenwriting mentors include Glenn Leopold, a three time Emmy nominee whose written hundreds of animated episodes such as The Smurfs and Scooby-Doo. Josh Conviser, the Executive Consultant on Rome and has published a novel Echelon. Jeff Arch is the Academy Award nominated writer for Sleepless in Seattle. Robert Lewis has worked as a film editor, director and producer on The Mod Squad, Macmillan & Wife to name a few. Mashey Bernstein teaches writing in film at UCSB. Rob Sternin and Prudence Sternin Fraser are best know for their television work, like Who’s the Boss and The Nanny. Peter Seaman has written many audience favorites, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Doc Hollywood, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Teresa Tucker Davies wrote Chain Reaction, A Perfect Murder and Collateral Damage. Glenn Gers an Emmy winning writer for Off Season as well as the feature Disfigured.

Filmmaking mentors include cinematographer Chuck Minsky, Pretty Woman, Raising Helen, Valentine’s Day. Mike Stinson teaches and is the Chair of Film Studies Department at Santa Barbara City College. Artie Schmidt is an Academy Award winning Editor of Forrest Gump, Coal Miner’s Daughter, The Birdcage. Director Perry Lang has worked on ER, NYPD Blue, Dawson’s Creek.

     High school finalist teams include Erik Choquette, Santa Barbara High School and Dylan Douglas, San Marcos High School.

     Jorge Flores and Frances Rozhko, San Marcos.

     Paul Leutheuser and Katie Elster, San Marcos.

     Samuel Foley and Erick Choquette, Santa Barbara.

     Taylor Fisher and Stephen Amspoker, San Marcos.

     College student teams include Ali Sommer, Santa Barbara City College and Peter Manthei, Westmont College.

     Chris Thompson, Santa Barbara City College and Ramsey Feaver, Brooks Institute.

     Jasmin Toutounchi and Brittany Sandler, University of California Santa Barbara.

     Josh Sexton, Santa Barbara City College and Koriayn Christensen, University of California Santa Barbara.

     Matt Holwick, Brooks Institute and Cora Hirashiki, University of California Santa Barbara.