Communiqué
WOUB’s Our Ohio High School Documentary Film Festival Winners Announced
< < Back toThe winning work will be shown on WOUB TV on June 30 at 9 p.m.
ATHENS, OH –Hadley Fain from Wellston High School has been named the 1st place overall winner in WOUB’s Our Ohio High School Documentary Film Festival. Fain produced a short documentary called The Art of Finding Yourself about the struggles and successes of being a young artist in a small town. Fain was one of nearly 100 students at five high schools in southeast Ohio that worked with WOUB Public Media this year as part of the second year of the Our Ohio documentary film project. (SEE FULL LIST OF WINNERS BELOW)
The Our Ohio project challenges the students to learn about and explore independent 
documentary film, Appalachian cultural identity, media literacy and multimedia storytelling. WOUB received funding to support the 2021-22 project from the Ohio Arts Council, the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio Strengthening Civics Education in Appalachian Ohio grant, the Scripps College of Communication through the AT&T Aspire grant and the Our America: Documentary in Dialogue grant from American Documentary | POV, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Through the course of this school year, students in the participating schools learned about documentary filmmaking. The students watched POV documentary films and talked with their creators, while learning about how to create documentary films from WOUB employees.
Students from Ohio University’s Appalachian Studies program also worked with WOUB on the project this year. Assistant Professor of Sociology Rachel Terman guided her students through the development of a survey that the high school students took at the beginning and end of the project to measure the impact of the project on the students regarding their cultural identity.
WOUB’s Learning Lab worked with the high school teachers to identify resources and activities that align with educational standards to support the project. The Learning Lab also had camera equipment available for participating teachers to check out, so students could use it in creating their films.
WOUB worked with students at Logan High School, South Gallia High School, Alexander High School, Wellston High School and Meigs High School. WOUB also worked with professors at the University of Cincinnati and public television station WCET to add a cross cultural exchange component to this year’s project. Students in urban Cincinnati are working on a similar project, and the two groups are exchanging work to learn about each other’s similarities and differences.
WOUB will showcase the winning student work during a TV program called WOUB’s Our Ohio that will air on WOUB HD on June 30 at 9 p.m.
2022 WOUB Our Ohio High School Documentary Film Festival Winners
Best Overall:
1st Place: The Art of Finding Yourself, Hadley Fain, Wellston High School
2nd Place: The Next Chapter, Jenna Folden, Alexander High School
3rd Place: Mariah’s Doc, Mariah Clark, Alexander High School
Best Regional Feature:
1st Place: Appalachian Connections, Chris Miles, Meigs High school
2nd Place Appalachian Art, Jaiden Bell, Meigs High School
Best Technical Production:
1st Place: Sullivan’s Doc, Sullivan Potter, Wellston High School
2nd Place: Forged, Connor Moore, Alexander High School
Honorable Mentions:Amora Albano Documentary, Amora Albano, Alexander High School
Labels, Jolene Mathews, Alexander High School
McKenna Williams Documentary, McKenna Williams, Alexander High School
Joe & Gracelen Doc – Joseph Sharp & Gracelen Hawkins, Wellston High School
ABOUT THE OUR AMERICA CAMPAIGN:
In times of political division, we believe in the power of independent documentaries and their ability to help bridge divides. In light of the aftermath of the 2016 election, and current cultural wars, we seek to partner with PBS stations to use POV films as a platform for dialogue and utilize the resources we create to help start conversations, give voice to the disenfranchised and mobilize individuals, communities, organizations, and for policy makers to take action based on informed decisions. We also desire to empower stations with creative approaches to audience building and attract a cross section of citizens. We propose to activate our extensive network of community partners for a high-impact screening series called OUR AMERICA: DOCUMENTARY IN DIALOGUE, designed to inspire dialogue and understanding around divisive issues in nonpartisan spaces in the regions of the Midwest, West, the South, and rural areas.
ABOUT THE AT&T Aspire Grant:
The grant was created in response to growth in technology, media, and telecommunications and to provide continuous learning to acquire new skills that are needed to drive innovation across the AT&T company. By investing in education, the initiative helps provide access to training young people to get and keep good jobs.