Anthonia Onyejekwe has always had a passion for storytelling. As a kid she would come up with elaborate narratives for her Barbie dolls.
It wasn’t until she got to high school, at Aspire Lionel Wilson College Prep in deep East Oakland, that Onyejekwe saw the opportunity to take a film course through the dual-enrollment program at Laney College. When the class filled up before she could register, Onyejekwe made a plea to Laney’s dean of students.
“He told me to write a letter about why I wanted to join the course and why I’m passionate about film,” she told The Oaklandside. That letter got her into the course. “He really helped me take initiative.”
Today, Onyejekwe is the founder and executive director of REEL Film Program, an organization that provides filmmaking and multimedia training to high schoolers in Oakland and across the East Bay. The Oakland native started the organization for young people like her who have an interest in filmmaking but don’t have many opportunities at school to pursue it. She holds onto the question that the Laney College dean posed to her years ago.
“Now, when students are applying [to REEL], I always ask them, ‘Why do you want to enter this program? What is your passion?” she said. “I’ve always really enjoyed storytelling and just being able to tell something that was meaningful to people, whether it’s something that gets them thinking or helps them reevaluate the way they look at the world.”
The classes are free for students. During the school year, the program is broken into two semesters: the first is for learning about filmmaking practices and how to use cameras, and the second is for actually producing a short film. Teaching artists who have experience in the filmmaking industry lead the classes. The program also gives students a chance to network with people in the industry and pitch them ideas. At the end of the school year, students and their teachers and families gather to screen the films at the REEL Film Fest.
For the 2023-2024 school year, REEL had programs at Leadership Public Schools, a charter school network that includes LPS Oakland R&D, LPS Hayward, and LPS Richmond, and John F. Kennedy High School in Richmond.
This summer, REEL will also be hosting a free screenwriting camp for students, who will walk away from the program with a complete script for a short film. It’s open to students 13 to 17, and the deadline to register is June 14. The class will take place from June 24 to Aug. 2, with three in-person meetings and four virtual classes on Tuesdays in July. Youth who are interested can register online.
At LPS Oakland R&D, which shares a campus with Castlemont High School in East Oakland, teacher Daniel J. Eslick helped his students create “The Weight of Expectations,” a seven-minute short film about what happens when Andrew, an “A” student who is always at the top of his class, finds himself competing with a higher-scoring transfer student named Noah.
The night before the shoot, one of the actors dropped out, sending Eslick into a tizzy trying to find a replacement. But it all worked out.
“When they shot their film, seeing them lock in and really get into the thick of filmmaking is a huge reward,” Eslick told The Oaklandside last month. “I was stressed out because such is the nature of filmmaking, but seeing these kids walk in just made it all worth it. There’s nothing like that.”
Last week, students, their families, and their teachers filled the theater at The New Parkway in Oakland for the REEL Film Fest, eating bowls of popcorn and drinking lemonade as the short films were presented. The stories touched on themes of mental health, family, dating, friendship, and horror.
In “Going Live,” directed and produced by students at LPS Hayward, the 15-minute film documents what happens when a trio of true crime vloggers explores an abandoned TV studio and the site of a mass murder. Another group of LPS Hayward students created “Bound By,” about a young woman who goes on a first date with a man keeping an ancient secret.
Onyejekwe, who has worked at Warner Brothers and currently works as a producer for BuzzFeed’s Tasty division, said she hopes to use REEL to host more events and create more momentum around filmmaking in the Bay Area.
“I want people to know there’s something brewing here. You don’t have to go to LA or New York to find that,” she told The Oaklandside.
This was the third annual REEL Film Fest, each one featuring a local filmmaker or creator sharing words of encouragement with students. This year, Rafael Casal, cowriter and coproduer with Daveed Diggs of the Oakland love letter Blindspotting, was the keynote speaker, joining virtually because he was filming a project across the country.
Sporting an Oaklandish zip-up, the Oakland native appeared on the screen with a personal message for students pursuing the creative arts.
“Most people shouldn’t give you advice. Most of the time you should follow your own advice,” he said. “What I do is, I chase my own enthusiasm. … When an idea captivates me, when an art form interests me, or when I can’t stop thinking about something, I try to listen to the part of myself that is infatuated with an idea and I try to see that to its end.”
