The Digital Video club held their 13th annual Cinemadness film festival at Bow Tie Cinemas in Red Bank on Thursday, May 24. Students submitted films made during the school year to be viewed, giving them an opportunity to watch their videos on a movie screen for the first time.

The theme for this year’s festival was “Unlucky 13,” centered around the fact that this year was the 13th year the event was held. Junior and DV club council member Summer Ward of Oceanport said a lot a preparation and planning went into the night.

“We have to book a theater and make posters, tickets and commercials to help advertise,” Ward said. “But most importantly, we needed to encourage people to submit their films.”

Ward said that DV teacher and club adviser David Salowe makes the final decision as to which films will be played, as well as who wins the many awards of the night, including “Best of Fest” and “Future Filmmaker.”

“A lot of the films submitted come from the council, making us biased to choose the winners of the awards,” Ward said. “Mr. Salowe uses a variety of factors to make his decision, like the visual appeal and effective storytelling that each submission has to offer.”

Among the winners were seniors Abi Karl of Monmouth Beach and Carly Drabeck of Oceanport, who were chosen as this year’s “Future Filmmakers,” as well as Drabeck for “Best of Fest” for her film “Doors to the New Vocabulary.”

Sophomore Neil Estrada of Middletown attended the event for the first time this year and said he enjoyed many of the films he saw.

“My favorite piece of the night was called ‘What I Did’,” Estrada said. “The actors were great and it had great punchlines.”