San Fernando Valley Students Win Prizes in C-SPAN Documentary Competition
Posted on April. 9. 2021
Sofia Gevorgian and Anahit Malumyan, students at AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School in Canoga Park, are first-prize winners in C-SPAN’s national 2021 StudentCam competition.
Middle and high school students were invited to create short documentaries that addressed the public affairs network’s theme of “Explore the Issue You Most Want the President and New Congress to Address in 2021.”
Gevorgian and Malumyan sent in their documentary “Dear Congress and Mr. President, Recognize Artsakh.” The budding filmmakers were awarded $3,000 for their work. The video will be shown on C-SPAN on April 18 throughout the day.
The 17th annual StudentCam competition attracted more than 2,300 students to participate with more than 1,200 entries submitted from 43 states and Washington, D.C.
The competition is sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation. The documentaries were judged on how well the students followed this year’s theme, the artistic expression, how well they explored all sides of their topic and how they used aspects of C-SPAN programming.
The top five broad categories of interest that students tackled this year were:
- health care;
- the environment and energy policy;
- equal rights and equity;
- criminal justice/policing; and
- education.
Other local winners include an honorable mention to Natalie Kim, Seung (Rachel) Lee and Raelle Macasaet, from Chaminade College Preparatory High School in West Hills, for their documentary “Sick Injustice: The Discrimination That Plagues American Healthcare.”
Ella Warner, a student at Cleveland High School Humanities Magnet in Reseda, teamed up with Michelle Kim, from Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts, to create a video “The River of Change: Fighting Corporate Dominance” on climate change policy. Warner and Kim were also awarded an honorable mention.
Students in high school competed on a national, three-part regional level — West, Central and East. Documentaries from middle school students were judged solely on a national basis.
A grand prize winner was selected from all grade levels and regions and received $5,000. Cash prizes included four first prizes ($3,000), 16 second prizes ($1,500), 32 third prizes ($750) and 97 honorable mentions ($250) per documentary.
The award-winning videos, all of the winners and information about the annual competition may be seen at www.studentcam.org
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network was established in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit. In the San Fernando Valley, C-SPAN can be seen on Spectrum cable TV provider.
For more information on other area cable TV providers that carry C-SPAN, and facts about the nonprofit: www.c-span.org/about/faq/