Two thumbs up for high school students' original film

| 29 Sep 2011 | 08:33

WEST MILFORD — High school teacher Ralph Cooke must be doing something right, because for the second year in a row, his students have brought home first place in the Passaic County Film Commission Film Festival. This year, Mike Dygos, Sean McClellan, Zach Weiss, Sean Ryan and Andrew Steimel won for their entry “Violets are Blue.” It is a short, imaginative piece about a high school student who is struggling with the guilt and grief of his girlfriend’s death which happened in a car accident while he was driving. The film was up against 10 other entries in the high school category. The festival, which was held April 15, also judges films by college students. This is the second year of the festival and West Milford’s second first place win. In 2005, Nick Padovani, Dan Gould and Leigh Ann Stern took home the gold for their film, “Truth.” Cooke, who played a cameo role in this year’s film, teaches Communication Arts and Media, a three-course sequence. He said of his winning students, “They deserve a tremendous amount of credit for creativity and the attention to detail that went into the project. “It is those small details,” he said, “that bring authenticity to the film.” Other students in the program recently completed a video to submit to the television show “Extreme Home Make-Over” on behalf of Diane Sidoli, a local veterinarian who was severely disabled in a car accident. Those students are hoping Sidoli will be selected for the program and receive some much-needed help with renovations to make her home more handicapped accessible.