Fryeburg Academy student has film in Lewiston Auburn Film Festival

Jonny Tang, a foreign student at Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, never imagined he'd have a film in a festival, but a film he made in Michael Dana's film class is making its debut at the Lewiston Auburn Film Festival Saturday, April 14, at 12:30 p.m. at the Lyceum Gallery in Lewiston, Maine.

"As a foreign student here, to be accepted into a festival that I have never thought about seems unreal to me," Tang, who is a senior from China, said. "This is a really big encouragement to me on making films."

"The iEraser Story" is about an introspective teenager, who downloads an App for his iPad that lets him erase the things he doesn't want to deal with from his life. The responsibility leads up to an important decision that may have very serious consequences.

"Teenagers are rebellious and they don't like a lot of things," Tang said. "Most of them choose to escape or ignore these things, and after a long time, most of them will regret what they've done. So I wanted to express this idea through the movie."

The idea for the film had inauspicious origins. Dana assigned the class to come up with a theme for a film last May. When it came time to share his idea, Tang had nothing.
"I saw there was an eraser on my desk, so I said, 'Why don't we make a film about a magic eraser?'" Tang said. " I didn't expect this theme would be chosen, but it seemed people liked this idea."

There were over 400 entries and only about 80 films that were nominated for awards and will be shown. Tang is proud to be representing Fryeburg Academy at the festival.

"We hardly have students get into a big film festival," Tang said. "I hope I will be a good start. After our vocal jazz win — the first place in the nation —maybe we will have the best director in nation some day."

For more information about the Lewiston Auburn Film Festival visit www.lafilmfestival.org.