The Sonoma International Film Festival’s first event in two years, the student showcase, opened at the Sebastiani Theatre Wednesday morning, marking the end of the long-awaited return.

“Thanks to our hard work, fighting the pandemic and mass vaccination, we are able to celebrate them in a big way two years later,” Peter Hansen, the director of the Media Arts program at Sonoma Valley High School. “And now the mask is off.”

The screening for students in the Media Arts department, premiered more than 30 videos varying from documentary-style diaries of students living with COVID to heists and even boxing bouts. Showing films on the big screen at the Sebastiani Theatre as part of the SIFF makes students feel like a “rock star.”

“Raiders of the Lost Ark” actress Karen Allen opened the event with a Q&A where she told stories about her decades in Hollywood working with stars like Donald Rumsfeld in “Animal House” to Bill Murray in “Scrooged.”

Yet Allen’s advice for the students was simple.

“Do as much performance as you can, work on yourself as an actor, study with really interesting people and read every play you can get your hands on,” Allen said.

It was a scene from the classic high school film “Grease” that inspired the short film “Telephone” by Genevieve Smith and Annabel Sebastiani, two sophomores at Sonoma Valley High School.

“Telephone” was the final video shown during the student showcase and each passing film built up more tension and suspense for Smith and Sebastiani’s comedic short. The film starts with a simple message of Smith being cut from the high school basketball team. But as word spreads about the news, the story begins to take on a life of its own fueled by the imagination of its messengers.

“That was kind of nerve-wracking, having everyone react to everyone’s movie and then having like this big build up for everyone to see your own,” Sebastiani said. “Everyone that we had put in our movie…this was their first time actually seeing the final product on the big screen.”

Smith’s older brother had been in Hansen’s Media Arts program as well, and she and Sebastiani had brainstormed ideas for years about their own movie. Growing up as childhood friends, they saw other student directors and actors as being so much older than them; that their own student showcase was off in a distant future.

Until Wednesday.

“Finally we had our film in the film fest,” Sebastiani said. “And we got to watch it together and make it together and it was just like crazy that actually happened.”

As they watched the film, “cringing at the parts we were in,” they waited anxiously holding each other’s hands for the audience’s reaction.

“It was so weird because this is our first week going back to school where we’re not wearing a mask, right? It’s an option” to see classmate’s faces, Smith said.

They had been in eighth grade returning from spring break when the pandemic lock downs were announced. And Smith remarked on the weird and poetic nature of coming back from another spring break two years later without mask mandates and enjoying a theater full of maskless fellow students.

“Having everyone watch your film without a mask, like seeing their reaction clearly. That was cool,” Sebastiani said. “It was just… it was good. It felt normal.”

Addressing his class on Thursday, Hansen described what it felt like to reenter Sebastiani Theatre after 2 years where COVID-19 didn’t just stop SIFF — it’s stopped him from seeing his students faces.

“It was like walking through the door and saying ‘We’re back,’” Hansen said.

The Sonoma International Film Festival continues through Sunday, with films, culinary events and a celebrity tribute to Jacqueline Bisset. Funds raised by the festival help fund the Media Arts program, with a goal of inspiring a new generation of filmmakers every year.

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.