Every summer, a group of high school students in Birmingham pick up a camera for the first time and discover something powerful: their stories matter.

BHAM Film Camp is a five-day summer filmmaking experience where students learn storytelling, collaboration, and technical skills from professional filmmakers while creating short films about their community.

At the end of the week, their films premiere at the Film Camp Film Festival, where family, friends, and the public gather to celebrate their work and see Birmingham through the eyes of its youngest storytellers.

While we have been running a local film camp for the past 4 years through other nonprofits, this year, we are launching BHAM Film Camp as an independent nonprofit program, and we need your help to make it possible.

Our mission is to bring young people and local filmmakers together to explore creativity, build confidence, and connect across backgrounds through the power of visual storytelling.

We believe summer camp should be a place where young people discover who they are and what they are capable of. Filmmaking is uniquely powerful because it requires collaboration, curiosity, and empathy—skills that help young people imagine new possibilities for themselves and their communities.

We hope that one week of making a film together might spark a lifelong interest in storytelling. Through the connections students make at camp, they can discover internships, workshops, and creative opportunities that help them climb the ladder into the film industry.

Throughout the week, campers learn from professional producers, directors, cinematographers, editors, gaffers, and photographers from the Birmingham film community through workshops and hands-on exercises. By the end of the week, the students will have made a team short film that they produced, directed, and edited themselves. Past projects have included: narrative short films written by students, documentaries for local nonprofits, and character profits of community members.  At the end of the week, students premiere their work at our Film Camp Film Festival, where students get to present their films to friends, families, and community members who gather together to share their hard work! 

Film camp is for high school students (ages 14-18, from rising freshmen to graduated seniors) who are interested in learning about video, photography, cameras, storytelling, and/or editing… or who just want to try something new! Film Camp is capped at 20 students so that we can give quality attention and one-on-one coaching to everyone.

We also offer a track for our past campers who are now college students and want to return to camp as Junior Coaches. These young filmmakers continue developing their skills while helping to mentor the next group of campers.

Bham Film Camp operates on a sliding scale tuition model so that every student who wants to participate can attend, regardless of financial circumstances.

Families contribute what they can, but the true hard cost of hosting one camper for the full week is $300.

That cost covers:

• Daily lunch and snacks
• Camp t-shirts and supplies
• Tickets for them and their families for the final Film Festival premiere at Sidewalk Theater

All mentorship, filmmaking education, and camera equipment are provided at no cost to the students, thanks to volunteers, community support, and donations. 

Your donation helps ensure that every young storyteller has the opportunity to participate.

Your support will help us:

+ Purchase filmmaking equipment
+ Provide meals and supplies like t-shirts, journals, and bags for campers
+ Host our Film Camp Film Festival premiere
+ Offer sliding-scale tuition and scholarships
+ Build a sustainable creative education program in Birmingham
+ Cover some volunteers' gas money

Even small contributions help open the door for a young storyteller.
 


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