Last month, 17 year old Bend High student Max Reisfar was announced second place winner for his film, The Last Voyage of The Alert at the 2011 Youth Silent Film Festival in Portl .

74 films created by 190 young filmmakers were submitted for this years festival. Submissions arrived from as far north as Vancouver, BC, as far south as Temecula, California. The vast majority of filmmakers reside in Oregon Southwest Washington. This year’s winners were determined by the festival’s celebrity jurors who include the Oscar nominated Cannes Film Festival winner Gus Van Sant, New York Times best selling author Chuck Palahniuk, publisher/writer/producer Saturn Award Winner Kerry O’Quinn writer/producer Tom DeSanto.

The top three winning filmmakers received cash prizes, a fashion makeover by The FHF Group, appeared on KGW’s live @7, were invited to a private meeting with judges Kerry O’Quinn Tom DeSanto.

Reisfar said, “loved meeting those guys, they were so encouraging.” In addition to filmmaking Reisfar is an actor one of the hosts of the Weirdo Radio show on KPOV.

A sanctioned event of the Portl Rose Festival, the competition is open to all filmmakers aged 20 years or younger as of April 15, 2011. Submissions must be three minutes in length use pre-recorded music that will be supplied by the festival organizers. The Youth Silent Film Festival is presented in collaboration with philanthropist Jon “JP” Palanuk, organist Nathan Avakian, the Northwest Film Center, Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc. the Columbia River Theatre Organ Society.

Info: www.makesilentfilm.com or info@makesilentfilm.com.

Here is a link to  Reisfar’s award winning film, The Last Voyage of the Alert http://vimeo.com/23001593