Putney, VT — Franklin Academy is proud to announce that 14 original film and video works created by its students and faculty will be screened this weekend at the NeuroVisions Film Festival, hosted at Landmark College.
The selected works will appear across two festival programs, highlighting the depth, creativity, and growing impact of Franklin Academy’s filmmaking community. Known for elevating neurodivergent voices in media, the festival provides a powerful platform for emerging creators to share their work with a wider audience.
Leading Franklin’s presence at the festival is student filmmaker Ashling DeSilva, who will showcase five films created over the past year: A Discovery of Oddities, Evie, Static_N0 Response, The Portrait, and When the World Lost Color. Together, these works reflect her evolving cinematic voice, marked by experimentation, storytelling, and visual originality.
She is joined by fellow student filmmakers Milan Bonilla-Cruz and Hazel Saul, each presenting multiple pieces. Bonilla-Cruz’s films FranklinKart and Steaking News bring energy and humor to the screen, while Saul’s How to Care for Your Franklin-Ling and Virtual World explore imaginative and conceptual storytelling.
Additional student contributions include movie thing that i dont know what to name by Ella Shapiro, Risk by Sam Monticello, and Unlucky Day by Andrew Vicino.
Faculty are also featured prominently in the festival lineup. Josh Weissbach, Associate Dean of Students and an experimental filmmaker, will screen two collaborative works: a spectrum of screen tests No. 01, created with student filmmaker Samay Bafana, and Magic To Do, developed in collaboration with Matt Landry-McWilliams, Heather Hamilton, and the cast of Pippin.
This achievement underscores Franklin Academy’s commitment to fostering creative expression and providing students with authentic opportunities to share their work beyond campus. Through programs like film and media production, students are encouraged to develop their voices, explore new forms of storytelling, and engage meaningfully with broader artistic communities.
As the festival unfolds this weekend, Franklin Academy celebrates not only the recognition of its filmmakers, but also the creativity, collaboration, and bold storytelling that brought these projects to life.
