Sofia Macias, a senior at Denver School of the Arts, directs her 6-minute film Resonance.

Sofia Macias has known she wanted to work in the film industry since she was very young. “I’ve loved horror films since I was 8 years old,” she says. A senior at the Denver School of the Arts, she recently found out that her 6-minute film Resonance was accepted into the All-American High School Film Festival in New York City. Macias describes the film as a psychological horror story of a girl who lost her little sister in a drowning accident.

Resonance was just one of 20 films selected from DSA­—a school record, according to Torrance Maurer, a teacher in the school’s Video Cinema Arts Department. “I’m proud of what we’ve done. It’s been great for the students,” says Maurer. He says the festival also gives his students the chance to see what films their peers around the country are making.

Macias is excited to go to the festival and to see her work on the big screen. She says she loves working in film because “it reaches the brain in a different way than anything else. And I think horror as a genre is the most impactful genre because fear is one of the most interesting emotions you can evoke in an audience.”

The All-American High School Film Festival takes place Oct 18-20.