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News
HOLIDAY 2014
Bully No More: One Boy’s Mission
Emma Seely-Katz &
Ellie Mendevil
Staff Writers
It’s not unusual for
an OCSA student
to dream of making a movie, but 7th
grader Gerry Orzikh
(IA) took his dream a
step further: Before
even entering high
school, Orz made a
short film, “Equation
of Life,” which received awards from
seven film and family
organizations, including the prestigious LA
Movie Awards.
“Equation of Life,”
a film about a boy
who is bullied because of his Judaism
and his two moms,
was inspired by Orz’s
own experiences as
a victim of bullying in
3rd grade. After his
parents explained
cont’d from pg. 1
SHH member, senior
Marissa Mortenson
(CMD), said “It’s definitely not a mourning
holiday—it’s a celebration.”
Senior Jenna Pontillas (CMD), also a
member of SHS, said
“It’s a celebration.
You’re celebrating
your past, and your
ancestors.”
Randy Au, assistant
director for the Visual
Arts Conservatory,
to him what bullying
was and Orz learned
more about the
epidemic of bullying
in elementary and
secondary schools,
he was horrified and
knew he had to do
something.
Orz was “heart broken” by suicide stories that seem evercommon in teenage
communities and
sought stories about
bullying from other
victims. He noticed
“in every single story
there were a lot of
questions as to why
[bullying] is happening and what can
we do proactively to
stop it.”
His answer? Write,
direct, and star in a
film following a narrative of a bullying
situation from three
perspectives: the bul-
ly himself, the victim,
and the victim’s sister.
The burgeoning
filmmaker has high
hopes for his film as
an “educational tool
that can be used ...to
educate younger
kids by examples of
characters in [his]
film.”
Orz thinks studentadministration
communication is
imperative in the
fight against bullying in schools, saying
“schools always have
some sort of student
body or leadership
where kids help the
school run better.
These students can
help by creating
ways to report a
bully(anonymously or
publicly).”
One option that Orz )