LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Fern Creek High School film club is celebrating the release of its new film "A Perfect Blemish" later this week.
Alongside director and film teacher T'Shombi Basemore, the students collaborated to write, shoot and edit the more than hour-long film.
"It basically goes ahead and takes it up to a whole other level," Basemore said. "The thing I would always hear is 'wow that looks like a real movie,' no it is a real movie."
The whole thing came together in a matter of months, starting with the story -- written in part by now-graduate Joseph Shrewsberry.
"It was becoming real because we were making it real. Everybody could relate to it because it was written by everybody," Shrewsberry said. "It started as an idea, it started as a few questions, and then it became a page, and then it became a script. I was working and working and saw this was no longer an idea that I had with my film teacher it was a movie we were making and it's going to be in theatres."
Basemore said it was important that the film was built on words by and for the students themselves.
"I'm a 90's baby, with high school, these guys, the jargon and everything that's used -- [the students] would come to me and say 'no one would say that right now in 2023,'" Basemore said.
Authenticity counts when portraying one of your own.
"A Perfect Blemish" tells the story of Mariah, a high school student who loses her boyfriend in a car wreck. The film follows Mariah as she explores new love, learns how opposites attract and sees past life's blemishes.
Lead actress Layla Bell said she enjoyed putting herself in Mariah's shoes.
"Playing that character I'm like well how would I feel this, because I've never experiences anything like this and I got to just feel with another person's perspective on high school and how it was," Bell said.
"You've got to keep pushing, you've got to keep moving on and that it will get better," she said of the film's overall message.
Basemore is a Fern Creek grad himself and said prepping his students for potential careers in film is one of the most rewarding parts of crafting the movie.
"We're trying to go ahead and get kids ready where they could actually step out with sets that are coming here to Louisville," he said.
Basemore also said they want to show that Fern Creek is a place where students with a passion for film can thrive.
"This is the place to be to actually come and take on that role of learning how filmmaking is put together," he said.
The film is being shown this weekend at the Baxter Avenue Theatres.
Tickets are available through Eventbrite. The first showing is sold out, but Basemore plans to release more tickets.
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