Dear Friends,

Summer is a great time to look around your community, find the local heroes working to make a difference, and share their stories by making a short film. The MY HERO International Film Festival is looking for hero-themed films of up to 10 minutes in length, and the deadline is September 1st. 

The festival, now in its 20th year, honors filmmakers whose work celebrates those creating positive change. Prizes are awarded to professional filmmakers and to students in Elementary, Middle-High School and College.  Entry fees are waived for all students. 

SPECIAL AWARDS with cash prizes include:

The WOJ Youth Reporter Prize - given in honor of Esther Wojcicki

Dan Eldon Activist Award - sponsored by Kathy Eldon and Amy Turteltaub, 

The Ron Kovic Peace Prize - sponsored by Ron Kovic

The Relationships First Award - given by The Foundation for the Contemporary Family

The Eva Haller Women Transforming Media Award - given by Eva Haller 

The Mattie Stepanek Poetry Prize - given by Jeni Stepanek

The Sing for Hope Music Video Award and more

We hope you will share our media arts resources with students, filmmakers, artists and educators that you know.

Thanks for being a part of MY HERO's global learning community.

Read on to learn more.

Warm regards,



Jeanne Meyers and the MY HERO Team

The MY HERO Team

Submit your film to the 20th Annual MY HERO International Film Festival. Prizes are awarded to elementary, middle school, high school, college and professionals in a variety of categories — documentary, narrative, music video, animation, experimental, and more. The final deadline for all festival films is September 1st.

The final submission deadline is September 1, 2024, via FilmFreeway.

The submission fee is waived for students through our Student Submission Form.

Sponsorship opportunities are available. Inquire here

All winning films can be viewed online. Click here to learn about Special Awards.

The historic Rivian South Coast Theater provided a beautiful venue for connecting community for World Oceans Day. The program included excerpts from the MY HERO's Laguna Beach Eco Heroes documentary. Nancy Caruso, founder of Get Inspired Inc., Mike Beanan, of Laguna Bluebelt, and Ed Alonzo, of Laguna Ocean Foundation and Rich German, of Project O, provided updates on their impactful work preserving and advocating for Laguna Beach's precious marine protected areas. Wendy Milette, Director of The MY HERO International Film Festival, showed two films that featured ocean heroes from around the world and announced the 2024 winners of the Sylvia Earle Ocean Conservation Award.

The Sylvia Earle Ocean Conservation Award, with comes with $2,000 in cash prizes and is presented by MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation's

One World One Ocean Campaign.

The award is part of the MY HERO International Film Festival and is presented annually, on June 8th, and featured on MY HERO's website for family and classroom use to celebrate World Oceans Day.

The 2024 Winners are:

Artist Max Romey won for his short documentary "If You Give a Beach a Bottle," which shows an ocean debris cleanup in a remote area of Alaska.

The student winner was USC student Shannon Morrall, for "Spear. Spatula. Submarine," a documentary about a battle with the predatory lionfish, which is destroying sea life in Florida. Submissions are being accepted for the 2025 Earle Award. Submit your own ocean-minded films.

View All Winners

The winners of this year's Robert Shetterly Portrait Contest have been announced. You can view the winning artwork on the MYHERO website. The Robert Shetterly Portrait Contest, is named for the artist, activist and founder of Americans Who Tell the Truth.

This year's overall winner is Resilience by Demarest, New Jersey, middle school student Gamin Kim.

"The selection this year was very hard. The quality of all the works is very hig

When so much of the work is technically superior, I have to look at other factors.

The story that goes with Gamin's drawing is powerful and inspirational: a woman is in a terrible accident who is burned badly and refuses to give up on her dream of becoming a professor. I am impressed that Gamin did not flinch from looking at the disfiguring scarring but was able to demonstrate the beautiful spirit of Lee Ji-sun --- so that the scarring is what you see but then don't see. The spirit and scarring are both profound, but the scarring becomes superficial. Bravo!"

- Robert Shetterly

Submissions are being accepted for the 2025 Robert Shetterly Portrait Contest.

Join MY HERO Education Outreach Director Laura Nietzer online, as she presents at this year’s ISTE Live Conference on Saturday, June 22 from 2:00 - 2:50 pm EDT. Learn how teachers and students use MY HERO’s free media resources to enrich learning. 

Middle and High School Students are invited to apply for a mentoring opportunity with The MY HERO Project! Our team will help youth create videos of those working for positive change in their communities. Selected videos will be included in the documentary project: The MY HERO Report - Youth Edition.

There are two ways to apply for the Youth Journalist Mentor Program:

Write an Essay about your hero.

or

Make a short film about your hero.

The MY HERO Student Reporter Essay Contest is open to middle school and high school students who have a passion for storytelling and a desire to uplift those who embody the values of courage, kindness, and resilience. Essays can celebrate local and global heroes, who've had a a positive impact in their community. Deadline for essay submissions is September 1st.

For students choosing to submit a short film, entries must be 10 minutes or less. Videos created for this program will also be considered for the WOJ Youth Reporter Award in the MY HERO International Film Festival.

Esteemed educator and author Esther Wojcicki sponsors the annual 'WOJ' Youth Reporter Award, which comes with $2,000 in cash prizes. The award celebrates student reporters, whose short films showcase heroes making a positive difference in their communities and the world. Deadline September 1st.

Check out MY HERO's free Media Arts Resources to help students create their own inspiring films.

Shop the MY HERO Store.

Help support MY HERO's global learning community.

We need and value your support for The MY HERO Project so we can continue to provide our free educational resources to millions of teachers, students and families around the world.