WHS freshman's film debuts at Cleveland festival

Westlake High School freshman Katie Cirincione's animated short film, "Checkers the Cat," was accepted and is part of this year's Cleveland International Film Festival, which runs March 30-April 10 at Tower City Cinemas.

Her stop-motion animation film is about a drawn cat named Checkers who comes to life. The piece was created when Katie was in pre-engineering teacher Kurt Thonnings' Electronic Communications class.

Katie's film will be shown at Tower City Cinemas on Sunday, April 3, at 11:30 a.m. A second screening will take place Sunday, April 9, 11:30 a.m., at the Akron Art Museum. Her two-minute film is part of the Family Shorts Program 1, FilmSlam International Shorts Program, and FilmSlam Shorts Program for Middle School Students. Learn more at clevelandfilm.org/films/2016/checkers-the-cat