Mark Knecht, right, presents an award for “Fun with Friends” category to Mia Wellington in this year’s Family Fun Film Fest. Photo by Dave Berry.

SYRACUSE — Syracuse’s Pickwick Theater was buzzing with excitement Saturday morning, Aug. 6, when the second annual Chautauqua Family Fun Film Festival was held. The festival consisted of phone videos submitted by local residents capturing fun on the water, fun with friends and fun with pets/animals. 

“Everyone carries a video camera today” stated Mark Knecht, Chautauqua’s project coordinator. “Our concept is to create a community video that focuses on family fun and community spirit. The number of people submitting clips has grown. People love seeing their videos on the big screen.” 

The festival included more than 50 clips and a few still photos organized into three categories. “Fun with Water” included various lake and boating activities. “Fun with Animals” included videos of pets, deer, groundhog, fish and a frog. “Fun with Friends” included videos of parties, dancing and yard fun.

Cash prizes were awarded in each of the three categories. Ellie Johnston won an award for her video showing her paddle board adventures with her dog. Sydney Lamb’s winning video showed Sydney and her daughter sharing her daughter’s first wave board ride. Mia Wellington won the award for Fun with Friends doing an excellent impression of a mermaid. She said, “I was parodying a TV show I watched as a kid.”   

The festival was free to attend with around 100 people attending. Awards were presented after the video was shown. The film’s producers, Matthew Wuthrich and Ryan Snider, were introduced by Jerry Van Lue who served as the master of ceremonies. Wuthrich said, “This year, we had a better turn-out and more creative entries. It made selecting the winners more difficult.”

“We expect next year’s participation will continue to grow as the idea of the event spreads,” Knecht commented. “It’s free to submit a video, and free to attend the festival, and the Pickwick is a great partner.” Karen Wellington said, “We had a lot of fun and are already planning next year’s videos.” The film ended in a somber, respectful way with three Taps videos from the Chautauqua Taps event Memorial Day weekend.

The video is available on YouTube and found by searching for Chautauqua-Wawasee.