D.C. is a city with no shortage of film festivals, but a new one launching this weekend is promising to bring a bunch of fresh new voices to the table.

Enter the Anacostia Youth Media Festival, a program slated for Friday and Saturday that offers workshops on different forms of media, film screenings, and an awards ceremony, all geared toward young Washingtonians.

The festival, launched by a professor in American University’s film and media studies program, is open to all youth from across the region, but places an emphasis on the work of students from wards 7 and 8. It will feature a film competition in which youth filmmakers — perhaps the next big-name creative from the District — will be judged by their peers. [Disclaimer: AU holds the license for DCist’s parent organization, WAMU.]

Brigid Maher, a filmmaker and associate professor in AU’s School of Communication, founded the festival to connect undergraduates in her department with students in Southeast D.C. so they could uplift each other’s creative endeavors. Students from communication school’s public relations program ran all the marketing and public outreach as part of their final projects.

American University film and media students will help lead workshops about different forms of media, including podcasting, smartphone journalism, street photography, and video gaming; attend screenings; and participate in an award ceremony. The project is part of the university’s Community Voice Lab, an ongoing effort to engage with the District’s residents through documentary filmmaking. Maher applied for and received a festival and gatherings grant through the Humanities Council of D.C. to organize the festival.

The goal is for AU students to “learn about the youth experiences, and then the youth learn about the university students. So it’s a really wonderful exchange,” Maher says. “They’re getting excited, and they’re being inspired by each other.”

The programming for the free festival will take place at the Anacostia Arts Center, Busboys and Poets Anacostia, and the home of Ron Moten’s Check It Enterprises on Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE. (Moten’s forthcoming D.C. Go-Go Museum is listed as a partner of the festival — the museum is still in the works, and its mobile version will launch this summer, while construction begins on the physical location in the same Anacostia building that houses Check It.)

Moten, a vocal activist behind the #DontMuteDC movement, is serving as a humanities scholar for the festival and will host workshops on positive social media use for youth participants. Moten told the Washington Informer in an interview that he’d like to see more universities partner with the community for projects like this one.

“The young people have so much talent, but they’re using it in the wrong way,” Moten told the publication. “We got to reverse that through outlets like this.”

Young filmmakers from across the D.C.-area submitted short films and photography, which will be screened at the Anacostia Arts Center at various points throughout the festival. The weekend will be bookended by an opening night reception at the arts center and a concluding awards show at Busboys. The organizers will give out eight awards in categories like “Best in Social Impact” and “Best Music Video,” and at least two awards will come with cash prizes, Maher says.

Lalanya Abner, a Howard University graduate and professor, actress, and filmmaker — and daughter of former D.C. First Lady Cora Masters Barry — has also been working with the festival, mentoring the young people serving on the jury reviewing the films up for awards.

Kodi Jordan, 12, of Congress Heights and a sixth grader at DC International School, is a student participant in the festival and an aspiring filmmaker. Jordan says he’s helped review some of the films in the contest and plans to attend some of the workshops over the weekend to gain more technical skills behind the lens. The festival will showcase Jordan’s short film, The Key, about a man looking to get into his car, on Saturday afternoon.

“We get to watch videos, then talk about what’s good or bad, or what they could have done to make the videos better,” Jordan says. “And, we get to make our own stories — any type of stories, like nonfiction and drama.”

This is Jordan’s first time participating in a media festival, he says.

Maher says the idea for the festival was born from a project her film students began in the 2021-2022 school year with students at Kramer Middle School in Southeast, where the students completed a music video for musicians Dunia Best and Aram Sinnreich — also an AU professor involved in the local music scene. That music video will premiere on opening night.

“It’s important to us to build parity, post-COVID, with youth who live in wards 7 and 8, East of the River,” Maher adds. “As we know, COVID has been extremely devastating for all of us, but I think that the youth, having been home for two years, have really felt the brunt of the effects. So it was really important to us to create a festival that had direct involvement of the youth so that we can understand the pressing issues they’re dealing with at this time.”