Friday, April 13th, the 125th annual Thespian Film Festival proved to be a great success, building on last year’s momentum. The evening was filled with food, laughter, suspense, awards, and of course, entertainment [editors note: that’s what this section is all about]!! Seniors Jon Link and Jennifer Compton were the emcees, and other senior members of Thespians introduced films from each category and presented awards to the filmmakers. Many films were submitted, but only six were deemed good enough to be shown to the student body. The awards were presented as follows: Best Cinematography went to Between by Wyatt Miller, and Best Editing went to Johffris by Johffris (seniors John Alexander, Jeff Hanson, Chris Simonsen). Out of the films shown that evening, Johffris was a huge crowd pleaser; everyone seemed to enjoy it. Junior Anne Todey’s favorite film of the night was Joffris because “it had all the elements of a good movie: action, comedy, and drama.” It was also the favorite of fellow junior Nick Schroder. “Joffris was the best. Jeff Hanson’s nipple was really sexy,” Schroder said. The evening continued with the Best Soundtrack, which went to Ludarae by the band Ludarae (seniors Jacob Pleasants, Jeff Kollasch, Wern Ong, Andy Lane, and Dennis Kuo), who performed “Remember Me.” After a short intermission, the Best Animated Feature was shown. It was titled All A Ninja Needs by junior Jacob Canfield. “I don’t really know anything about animated films, but for being homemade it was really really good, and it had a cute storyline,” Todey said. In the words of senior David Naylor, “It is very hard to be a ‘dokuomentary’ let alone the best dokuomentary,” This perfectly describes what Stripped: A Dokuomentary was. It follows the metamorphosis of senior Dennis Kuo before and after a life-altering rejection and was filmed by his fan club, otherwise known as Northside. And now what you have all been waiting for: Best Film. No one deserved this award more than senior Joseph Fuller, especially given his history with the film festival. After submitting a film every year (and being turned down every time) it was monumental that one of his films was finally shown. He was the only actor, but played two characters and filmed the whole thing himself. He even created lightsabers for a fight scene against himself. “I started it over the summer and then [the project] went dormant for a while until Spring Break, when I worked intensely on it for 10-12 hours everyday.” All of Fuller’s hard work paid off, though. “It was crazy cool,” junior Patrick Schmidt said. If you missed the Film Festival this year, you missed out, but there is always next year. “The best part of the Film Festival is that we get to see what our classmates and friends make in their free time,” senior Ben Ruppert said. “Usually the end result is amazing and totally surpasses my expectations.”