Ballyheigue’s St Joseph’s school named as big winners in national film contest

It’s award season in Hollywood but closer to home here in Kerry, a Ballyheigue primary school has come out on top in a national film contest, winning a cool €500 in the process as well.

St Joseph’s are the school in question and they were named as the Overall Primary School winner in this year’s Trend Micro ‘What’s Your Story?’ competition.

This competition is one that has been running since 2012 with the aim of highlighting skills that can be learned to make the use of the internet safer for all.

This year’s competition challenge was to produce a 2 min film which answered the question ‘How do you know what’s real or fake online?’.

It was the students from Miss Donegan’s class that took up this task, focusing on the idea of ‘fake advertising’ and emphasised the basic guidelines that we sometimes forget i.e. if something seems too good to be true it probably is and that you should always check a story or advertisement to ascertain if it is factual.

For their two-minute film, the children came up with the idea of a ‘Super Shampoo’ which would answer all your hair woes. The product is purchased but it leads to a hair disaster.

The film shows what the main character (played by Jack Fay) could have done to ensure that the product was genuine.

The film was scripted by the children themselves and also devised the format for the film with Saoirse O Hanlon directing.

Judges for the competition were effusive in their praise for the film as they praised the relatable angle and the comedy side of things too.

This year’s win follow on from previous ‘What’s Your Story?’ wins back in 2016 and 2021. The school also won the Overall Category Winner back in 2019.

This is not the end of the road for the school’s film though with it now entered in the Media Literacy Awards.