Entertainment
Special Autism Awareness event takes place at the Westport Youth Film Festival
By Katie Hacala
May 2, 2008 - 10:07:25 AM

Alexa DiCambio, filmmaker and Norwalk High School senior

While April is officially the National Autism Awareness month, the Westport Youth Film Festival will be spreading the word, by holding a special event the day of WYFF on May 10, 2008.

At 4:00, amateur filmmaker and Norwalk High School Senior Alexa DiCambio will be showing her 23 minute film Autism in Our World, a documentary which centers around the life of Cole Horne, a ten year old boy with Autism who Ms. DiCambio spent a month filming. Along with taking footage of Cole participating in daily activities, Ms. DiCambio also interviewed his family members and others close to him on the effects Autism has had on their lives. Following the film screening, Ms. DiCambio, Cole’s mother Avery Horne, and a representative from the organization Autism Speaks will gather for a panel to discuss the film, and how this film makes a difference in how Autism is understood by the community.

Ms. DiCambio, who has held aspirations to work in the movie industry since she was fifteen, made the film as an assignment for her high school class History in the Making: Creating Documentary Films, which is taught by Mr. Kyle Seburg. The course, which is new this school year, teaches students the specific skills required of making documentaries by having them choose an issue of interest to them on which to focus their project.

Ms. DiCambio picked the topic of autism for her documentary after her mother, a friend of Avery Horne, suggested the idea. DiCambio thought it the perfect subject, for she felt that the horrors of the disease were relatively unknown to the general public, and that a film would help to generate awareness.

Mr. Seburg had high praises for Ms. DiCambio’s work, which had only been the second movie she had ever made. Currently, she is making her third feature, a dramatic film depicting a story around a schizophrenic man. In the fall, Ms. DiCambio will be attending the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where she plans on continuing her education in the field of film production.

Ms. DiCambio’s documentary and the accompanying panel will be apart of the Westport Youth Film which is run for high school students, by high school students, and will be held at Bedford Middle School in Westport, CT, with events running all day from 11:00 am until 10:00 pm. Tickets for the Festival are $10 for those 18 and under and $20 for those who are older. They can be purchased at the door. For more information, please visit www.wyff.net.

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