On Oct. 3, 2016, the White House hosted the first ever South by South Lawn (SXSL) festival. This festival was comprised of three components focusing on civic engagement: interactive panels, films from students K-12 and inspirational music artists.

SENIOR Leah Young was in a group that produced one of the 28 selected films out of 700 submissions. Her work placed 17 out of the 28, and was awarded honorable mention. The President of the American Film institute, Bob Gazzale, and the director of digital strategy, Adam Garber, hosted a day of events for the finalists. The students first watched a screening of the 28 winning submissions and engaged in a panel discussion focused on the film industry. Leading the panel were the cast and makers of Stranger Things, a new Netflix original series. “I was honored, and it was an unreal experience. My favorite part was getting [the film] finished, it took forever, and it was very stressful, but we got it done and became a finalist,” Young said.

Young’s film, ‘Don’t Tell Me,’ got its name from their central theme of showing the words “don’t tell me” followed by a person verbally discrediting a stereotype. Each account ended with the actor saying, ‘tell us’ and then describing their hopes for the country’s future.

“As soon as I got that topic of ‘The World I Want to Live in’ I thought about racial inequality and how in America there is such a divide between the races and I feel like that was an important theme that should be expressed through film,” Young said.

To reach a broader audience through powerful visuals in their film, Young’s group focused on the problems of racial tension within the United States.

According to Young, “City council wants to make a resolution and a proclamation [about civil actions on racial inequalities now].” Her group and another finalist group from Cincinnati, including Walnut students Jeremiah Bolden, ‘22, and Xander Wynn ‘22, have been invited to City Hall to witness the writing of this proclamation.