RVMS students' film wins international honor

Three Royal Valley students have won first place in the middle school division of the MY HERO International Film Festival.

On Thursday, RVHS freshmen Luke Boyden, Colin Everts and Colin Caviness were notified that their film, “Emma Cushman: A Light In The Darkness,” was the top film entered in the international film festival at the middle school level. 

Last year, the film was selected as the winner of the international Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes 2016 Discovery Award, which included a $7,500 cash prize.

The documentary centers on Emma Darling Cushman, an American nurse and missionary who saved the lives of thousands of Armenian children during the Armenian genocide.

The MY HERO Film Festival is being held Nov. 11 and 12 in Santa Monica, Calif. and each film centers on a hero or the act of heroism. Awards are given in a variety of categories, including environmental, humanitarian, music video, narrative, animation, documentary and more.

As a first-place winner, the RV students are entitled to VIP tickets to attend a special dinner reception and awards ceremony in California, if they so choose. 

As seventh-graders, Boyden, Everts and Caviness began researching Cushman and interviewed a relative of Cushman’s, a descendant of an Armenian orphan, an Armenian priest, a UCLA professor and others for the film.

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