Arya Loonkar ’29 Honored at High School Film Festival
Most 9th graders spend their first year of high school finding their footing. Arya Loonkar ’29, however, is busy finding her place behind a camera. The student filmmaker won three awards at the inaugural New England High School Film Festival on October 25. She served as a key crew member on two films that won in the best comedy and drama categories. Arya also won the best microshort category with a film she directed independently.
This year’s festival theme, “Unframed: Your Voice. Your Vision. No Limits,” invited student filmmakers to break free from conventions. Whether through raw documentaries, bold narratives, or experimental visuals, it challenged students to share stories only they could tell. “It was really exciting,” Arya says about the creative approach the theme encouraged.
Arya began making films in the 6th grade after taking an introductory class at her former school. She credits her versatility to years of experimenting across genres, seeing her work as multidimensional. “A lot of comedy can fit in drama films and vice versa,” she says.
At Concord Academy, Arya has continued to build her skills through the Introduction to Film course with Visual Arts Department Head Justin Bull P’25 ’28. For a class assignment, she was asked to create a Soviet Montage, a style of film developed in the 1920s that uses editing to create meaning through the juxtaposition of shots.
The project was awarded Best Microfilm at the festival. The film follows a girl, played by Arya’s classmate Emma Sayles ’29, who steps through a door and finds herself transported to another world. “Working with Justin is really nice,” Arya says. “He’s helping me hone my technical skills, and the class gives me the space and equipment to make the movies I’ve dreamed of.”
Arya has also flexed her creative problem-solving skills. She says the most challenging part of making films is coordinating schedules among the different artists involved—collaboration and communication are central to her process. The film awarded Best Drama was made during a 48-hour film contest with 30 classmates. “Film is definitely a team sport,” Arya says.
She adds that transitioning from a small middle school to Concord Academy has inspired her screenplays: “A lot of the films I make are based on my experiences. Since CA is so different from my old school, it’s giving me new things to write about.”
As Arya looks ahead, she is already brimming with ideas. She plans to take a summer film program and continue developing her filmmaking skills at CA, with hopes of joining the school’s Feature Film Project course in the future. With her visual imagination, there will be no shortage of stories in her future.
