Courtesy of Audubon Charter School
Damon Ribka, Gabriel Wartelle, and Jennifer Croisier work behind the scenes on “Hidden Reflexion,” starring Marley Marsalis, Jesse Martinez and Sage Thompson.
Audubon Charter School’s very first film festival was scheduled for March 14, 2020. That was five days after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Louisiana, and it would be over a year before the middle school students — who wrote, acted in and helped to shoot the movies — would be able to show off the products of their hard work.
Out of the glare of the May morning sun, in the cool Prytania Theatre, Stephanie Knapp, an Audubon parent and teacher who led Audubon Charter students through the process of making movies together, took the stage. The students and their supporters — parents, family and friends — were masked and spread out in the theater, with alternating rows taped off to allow for sufficient social distancing.