One day last summer, 10-year-old Aria Arinella-Rashid came home from camp, “And I was really scared – that the earth was dying, and with it the animals. So I asked my mom, ‘What can I do?’”
Aria’s mother Jessica is an actor, and together the two of them came to an agreement: the answer was to make a movie. “So I went to my best friend Hannah [11-year-old Hannah Leffler] and a few of my other closest friends and we just kinda started a production,” Aria explains with disarming confidence.
The result is a short, sweet, comic and affecting movie that will be screened on Saturday May 18 at 5 pm at the Irvington Presbyterian Church as part of a fund-raising event, to raise both cash and awareness for the Wildlife Conservation Society (wcs.org), an organization supported by the Bronx Zoo, dedicated to conserving the world’s largest wild places.
Aria and Hannah, who attend the Main Street School in Irvington, shared their ideas with a group of young friends from the River Towns. The joiners, including those who will appear at the event, comprise Dakota and Dallas Dawkins, Penelope Gobert, Julia Pasternak, Nico Rus, Frank DaCosta, Cate and Alex Weiss, Linda and Violet Seery, Laylah Covington, Aria’s brother James and Hannah’s brother Dylan. And, with some input from the mothers, “Me and Hannah started making a script,” Aria said. “We wanted as many facts as we could, but then again we didn’t want it to be boring.”
And boring the film certainly isn’t. Instead, its troupe of young people makes valuable points about composting, recycling, and conserving resources, while including jokes and sight gags that deliver the messages with a smile. In its second half, the movie shifts to the larger subject of the animals, with a montage of affecting images set against a rousing musical score. Aria’s father Matt helped with the filming and her aunt, Alicia Arinella, a film producer, assisted with the film clips and the crafting. But Hannah and Aria’s choices predominate.
The event on May 18 is more than a simple screening. “We want it to be inclusive,” Hannah said, “involving a bunch of kids – some of them a bit older – and a bunch of acts.” The movie will be preceded by singing, monologues, some comedy, a circus act, and a performance by Aria’s band, The Black Cats. Donations to the cause will be suggested, and also raised by a raffle and a bake sale. An anonymous supporter has offered to match the money raised, up to $1500.
The girls acknowledge that other children at their school are involved in similar activities, “but we are the only ones having a benefit.” And their impressive work doesn’t end with the event. Plans beyond include writing a letter, with the assistance of a lawyer friend in Boston, “to get the attention of bigger people” such as Congressman Jamaal Bowman. What will it say? “This is what we need from you,” the girls answer. “Support us and help us make this come true.”
“Our biggest goal is to stop climate change but we’re not that good yet,” Aria admits.
“We’re just kids,” points out Hannah
