‘She Lives, Eats And Breathes This’: Wantagh Student Filmmaker Wins Regional Competition

WANTAGH, NY — While the Oscars wrapped up weeks ago, the film accolades are still rolling in for one Long Island filmmaker: AndaLucia Navetta, a student at Wantagh High School and Long Island High School for the Arts (LIHSA), won first prize in the SkillsUSA digital film production contest in March, earning her a trip to the New York State SkillsUSA competition, which kicks off Apr. 13.

Navetta is a student at Wantagh and LIHSA, a part of the Nassau County BOCES program that offers students career development in fields like EMT work, nail tech, plumbing and, in Navetta’s case, filmmaking. While she has been interested in filmmaking for a long time, the Wantagh high schooler said this was actually her first full film production.

“Before this, I had never really made a film, like a full one. I did a film camp during covid, so it wasn’t really a ‘camp,’ we were on a zoom call and working on iMovie,” Navetta said. “So it was not super high quality, but realizing what I can do was very heartwarming. Collaborating with my teammates and now getting to talk with my other classmates about it, [taught me] I’m not the beginner I thought I was.”

As for this competition, Navetta had to make a movie that met the prompt, “The night that changed everything.” To tell that story, Navetta made a horror film about a girl whose friends have a big blowout party. Throughout the course of the night, Navetta said her leading character realizes some things she didn’t know about her friends and herself.

“The messaging of the film is just, ‘be yourself,’ which is very cliche and basic, but I think now, especially, is a time where, ‘be yourself’ is a great message to have,” Navetta said. “A lot of the inspirations for the film were more ‘artistic’ horror films, psychological thrillers. I really like the perfectionism of ‘Black Swan,’ there’s another movie called ‘I Saw The TV Glow,’ which has a lot of the same colors. I really like to have the colors.”

On her own set, Navetta said she used a mix of corn starch, black food coloring and glitter as a prop to mimic, as she called it, “that artsy aspect.” She wrote the script for her regional-winning film on a school trip to Florida, in addition to performing as the lead actor. While she listed Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow” and Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” as a couple of her major horror influences, she said some of the first movies that really resonated with her struck a slightly different tone.

“I like Wes Anderson’s symmetry. I like those really wide shots, so that when it’s asymmetrical it’s very obvious, and it shows the viewer, ‘something’s wrong here,’” Navetta said. “My dad got me into filmmaking, and he showed me ‘The Royal Tenenbaums,’ which is his favorite movie. What also got me into movies was stop-motion animation. LAIKA animation studios, my heart and soul. I’d have to say one of the inspirations is ‘Coraline,’ because it has those elements of wanting something but that thing not being good.”

For Robyn Cavalieri, Navetta’s teacher, it was clear early on that Navetta was a special talent. The process of helping her develop her filmmaking skills, Cavalieri said, was extremely rewarding.

“This is my 28th year of teaching, and Andy came in with a backpack full of knowledge. She had these little experiences and interests, and we were able to hone in on that in class, and it exploded,” Cavalieri said. “It was like igniting TNT. She came in, had the vision, and once she had the access to the tools and a little bit of guidance they were off and running. And every project they do, even the smallest little project, is done to the most exemplary degree. I’m so proud of the work of these young filmmakers.”

As for how she felt when she heard Andy had won the regional competition and would be advancing to states, Cavalieri she was excited, thrilled and honored that she gets to work with such talented young filmmakers.

“I feel like the luckiest teacher in the world because of that. This is the best year ever, I’m having the best year with the equipment and the studio they’ve built for us,” Cavalieri said. “I love coming to work every day, I want to work harder for these students; they keep me young, they keep me on my toes, and I’m always excited to show them new things when I learn it.”

Up next for Navetta is the state competition, which she said she doesn’t have to “lock in” on until after spring break. She’ll get her prompt Apr. 13 and have a week to write, film and edit a short film. While the prompt won’t come in until mid-month, Navetta said she had already started laying some of the groundwork for the next round of film competition.

“What I’ve been doing with my classmates, already, is brainstorming different ideas for different genres,” Navetta said. “So, if it’s fantasy or drama or romance, if one of those is the genre, I at least have a skeleton of what I’ll do.”

Once the prompt comes down, Navetta said she’ll be sitting down with her headphones in and locking in on the writing process.

Depending on what she’s writing, the Wantagh high schooler said she rotates her playlist between Sublime, Mitski and a deep library of show tunes. She was in a production of “Legally Blonde” last summer, and keeps a list of shows she’d love to work on film adaptations of. As far as what’s on that list, Navetta started with a classic.

“Oh, Cabaret,” Navetta said. “I love Cabaret so much, I would do anything to be on the set of a reboot of a Cabaret movie. I would get coffees just to be on the set, and that would be amazing.”

“That’s the difference,” Cavalieri said. “She just wants to be around it, she lives, eats and breathes this.”