Samsung Mobile Fresh Films

Since 2002, Samsung Mobile Fresh Films has spent each summer taking the latest in technology and motion picture experience to the next generation of America's filmmakers. This program provides access to professional equipment, experienced instructors, and a complete filmmaking experience to young people willing to put in the hardest week of work of their lives. Sweat is all it costs to participate in what has become the largest teen filmmaking program in the country.

In the beginning, it might have been the smallest. It started in Chicago, where Dreaming Tree Films, an independent production company, had already introduced filmmaking to urban teens with the city's Afterschool Matters program. Seeing the opportunity to bring the art and science of filmmaking to any teen with the drive, determination and ambition to succeed, Samsung and Dreaming Tree developed Samsung Mobile Fresh Films.

The Start of Something
The first season featured just two cities, and twenty teens- with a private awards ceremony in Chicago, and the satisfaction of a job well done. Since then, the program has expanded, with new crews and more opportunities, its films premiering in juried national and international festivals, earning communication awards and the possibility of Oscar™ gold. Fifty percent of Samsung Mobile Fresh Films go on to compete on the festival circuit. Ten have earned coveted juried spots in Academy Award™ - qualifying festivals.

In 2007, Samsung Mobile Fresh Films offered a premiere filmmaking education to a hundred teens in nine cities, and added incisive, critical commentary on their films by a jury of film professionals, including acclaimed actor and director John Lithgow, director Katherine Brooks, and producer Jeremy Coon, among others.

Then, the winning teens were guests at our first annual AFI Youth Fest, part of and partnered with the prestigious American Film Institute's AFI Fest. It was a full day of youth filmmaking programming, including workshops with the cast and crew of Napoleon Dynamite, and finishing with the world premiere of 2007's gold medal film, Seattle's 24 HOUR SERVICE.

The Present and the Future
This program has grown from the inside out- every year, Samsung Mobile Fresh Films asks its teen crews how to improve on the experience, and each year, we've used their suggestions to build a better program. By their request, we've focused on the core aspects of filmmaking. In 2008, for the first time, the program will invite teen screenwriters to submit their work, achieving a long-awaited goal of making each of Samsung Mobile Fresh Films' short films 100% teen produced, from beginning to end.

Samsung and Dreaming Tree Films are proud of the tradition they've created with Samsung Mobile Fresh Films, and they look forward to many more seasons of excellence in youth filmmaking to come.