“He smells horrible,” says a girl.
“Was he wearing that three days ago?” asks someone else.
“He’s such a weirdo.”
“Pathetic.”
“So weak.”
The insults pile up before the target of the insults gets shoved around by two other guys. A couple of girls see, but are too afraid to step in.
The harassed teen sits on his bed at home. He contemplates the knife beside him, before running it across his wrist, not quite breaking the skin.
He then moves to a rooftop, his feet dangling over the side of the building. Then a foot can be seen stepping up to the edge, the screech of sirens soon following.
“He’s not the only one overstepping the edge,” read the words on the screen.
The scene is from one of the winning pieces in Surrey’s first-annual Anti-Bullying Film Contest.
The hard-hitting 60-second flick, called Downfall, was done by students at Guildford Park Secondary, who took top spot in the senior (16- to 18-year-old) category.
Taking first in the junior (14- to 15-year-old) category was the team People Against Discrimination from Johnston Heights Secondary with its one-minute film entitled The Liberation Project.
The film opens with a shot of a shadowy figure holding what appears to be noose. Flashing vignettes of students laughing at and harassing him in a school hallway follow, before the scene switches back to the young man placing the noose around his neck.
Back in the school hallway, a passerby stops to look back at the bullied teen, who’s collecting papers that have been knocked to the floor. A couple of schoolmates help him up, then are seen sitting with him on a cough, laughing and smiling.
And the lonely teen in the shadows removes the noose from his neck.
“End the bullying. Stop the hate,” the screen reads.
The youth film anti-bullying contest was launched last month by the City of Surrey, RCMP and CUPE Local 402. The top entires will be profiled on Global TV and Shaw TV, and the teams will receive guided tours of a working television program, courtesy of North Shore Studios, and the Global TV BC studio.
The winning videos will be screened in front of more 1,200 students at the 2012 ‘Projecting Change Film Festival’ to be held from April 17-22 in Vancouver, and the top entries in each category will receive tickets to the 2012 Vancouver International Film Festival.
