Future Voices
Congratulations to all of the 2023 Future Voices Festival film & photography winners!
Teachers, REGISTER NOW for information on how your students can participate in the 2023-24 school year.
Lensic Future Voices encourages students ages 12–18 across New Mexico to tell their stories through original photographs and short films. In partnership with Santa Fe Workshops, Future Voices provides high school and middle school students with the support they need to create high-quality projects that are judged in monthly contests and a year-end competition, all with cash prizes. In-class or virtual workshops, led by filmmaking and photography experts, are also available.
Questions? Email Marcella Ernest, program manager, at FutureVoicesNM@gmail.com.
Lensic Future Voices is generously sponsored by Bank of America.
Future Voices Annual Film & Photography Festival
The annual festival showcases three-minute films and original photographs created by students, for students, with cash prizes for winning entries.
Monthly Film & Photo Contests
Our monthly contest for student filmmakers and photographers features cash awards for winning entries, which are selected by a panel of professional judges.
Monthly Contest Submission Deadlines
The 15th of each month, October through March
Photo by Samantha Trujillo (New Mexico School for the Arts, Santa Fe)
Basic Guidelines
Categories: Animation, Comedy, Documentary, Experimental, Narrative.
Submissions: Films must be less than three minutes long, including credits.
Categories: Animals, Architecture, Color, Black & White, Humorous, Manipulated, Most original, Portrait, Street.
Submissions: Images may be color or black & white. Limit: two photo entries per student.
Classroom Support: Film & Photo Workshops
Future Voices offers an array of workshop modules, led by professional filmmakers and photographers, to enhance classroom curriculum and support production of students’ three-minute films and photographs. These workshops are available upon request.
Our Team
Marcella Ernest is a video artist and scholar of contemporary Native art. She earned a PhD in American Studies from the University of New Mexico, where she is a scholar in the Department of Art History. Marcella has been working with and mentoring young people in film and photography for more than 20 years, ten of them in the Future Voices program. She considers it an honor to be in community with New Mexico film and photography students and teachers.
Reid Callanan is founder and director of the Santa Fe Workshops, which for more than 30 years has offered photography and writing workshops to the international imaging community. In addition to workshops in Santa Fe, there are also educational programs in Havana, Cuba, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Reid volunteers his photography and teaching talents to help judge photo submissions and provide instruction to Future Voices students.
Winning Films & Photos
Support Future Voices
Lensic Future Voices, like all of the Lensic’s performing arts education programs, is funded by contributions from the community. Your tax-deductible donation to support Lensic education programs encourages a new generation of creativity and self-expression!