Submitted photo Aniyah Moore, a seventh grader at Chaney Middle School in Youngstown, played the role of Marissa, a girl experiencing dating abuse in a short film that won first place in the Friends4Friends Film Festival this fall at the DeYor Performing Arts Center in Youngstown. In this scene, she interacts with a threatening and jealous boyfriend.

YOUNGSTOWN — Chaney Middle School Principal Michael Sauner says the dating-abuse issues in the short film Chaney students made this year are not only important for their well-being but relevant because dating abuse happens among kids in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

“At this age level, they want to be grown,” he said. “They want to be older. They want to be grown up. They want to be in relationships. They want to be in love. And there comes a point in time at this age I think they struggle to navigate those feelings.”

The movie, produced by the Twinsburg company OK Inc., won best short film in the Friends4Friends Film Festival recently in the DeYor Performing Arts Center in Youngstown. Area schools and organizations that made films participated in the festival.

Sauner said it’s important to know that Chaney students not only acted in the film, but a group of about a dozen students selected the content of the film during monthly meetings leading up to the filming.

In the film, Marissa, the character played by Chaney seventh grader Aniyah Moore, experienced conflict with her new boyfriend when he became possessive and controlling over her.

He demanded that the girl turn over her new password to her social media account, then read remarks she made to another male student and got jealous of their friendship. His anger and threatening behavior escalated when he learned that Marissa’s friend, played by Chaney eighth grader Avi Cameron, found him to be too controlling and suggested that Marissa break up with him.

Aniyah told The Vindicator in an interview Friday when the students were allowed to pick the topic for the film, “I instantly thought of dating abuse because … at this school, most of the couples are pretty toxic to each other.”

Sauner referenced Aniyah’s remarks, saying, “And like she said, it does lead to some tense situations that can be perceived as toxic, which is why they landed on this topic.” He said he “gives the students, within reason, options” for what topics the films can be about.

“The other thing I want to point out is they all volunteered to be part of this,” he said of the Chaney students. “So this is something our kids are passionate about, getting these messages out. And it just allows them to have a really cool experience from the cinematic side of things, the acting. Not all kids act. Some do the camera work. Some kids help with props. It’s cool to watch.”

The tension in the film ramps up at the point where the boy confronted Aniyah’s friend, played by Avi Cameron, in the hallway as she walked with Marissa, and he threatened violence if Marissa’s friend does not back off.

“Keep it up, and I’m going to shoot you,” he told her.

“Are you threatening me?” Marissa’s friend said.

“You think I’m playing?” the boy asked.

Afterward, the girls talked about what happened, and Marissa told her friend not to “snitch.” But when Marissa’s friend’s father picked her up from school, he could see she was troubled by something.

“Hey, if you or one of your friends are in trouble, I really want to know about it,” he said.

She told him the boy threatened her that day.

The next scene showed the boy telling Marissa on the phone that he got suspended from school that day and he was going to “shoot up” Marissa’s friend’s house.

“You can’t be saying that,” Marissa told him.

The next day at school, Marissa confronted her friend about reporting the boy’s threat. But her friend said, “He’s been acting all unhinged, don’t you think? Bro said he was going to shoot me. That ain’t normal. My dad said I did the right thing.”

Avi won best supporting actress for her role in the film.

Marissa admitted that her friend was right and later told the boy by text message she was breaking up with him. He made another threat and was expelled from school. The story ended after both girls got done talking to the principal, played by Sauner.

The text on the screen tells viewers, “You should not be in a relationship with someone who tells you who you can talk to, tracks you, has all your passwords and threatens you and your friends.”

It urges the viewer to tell your friend you will go with them to talk to a parent or trusted adult about the problem “for her safety as well as your own.”

This is the third film Chaney students have made. Topics covered in two earlier Chaney films were vaping and fighting.

Aniyah said she is happy with the way the film turned out and the storyline of going to a trusted adult when a problem gets too big.

“When stuff like that gets too hard, it’s best to go to a trusted adult. I thought the storyline was really good, and felt like me and the others planned it out really well. I thought it was pretty good — the storyline, the acting, voices. It was good.”

OK Inc. produces a handful of films with schools and other organizations in the Youngstown area every year. Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown called one of the recent Boys and Girls Club and Mahoning County Juvenile Court films an “excellent example of what our young men and women go through in our community” and a “great outreach tool for our community.”

Sauner said the films are a positive message in a community that deserves to be celebrated.

“Our kids deserve that positive publicity. They deserve to be celebrated. There’s too much negativity shared out there about our kids, our community. We’ve got amazing kids that do great things. That gets lost a lot of times in translation. That’s why I love this kind of stuff. We share it through the whole school, on the web site, social media. Just another great example of the real talent that does exist in Youngstown City Schools.”

The films are available for viewing on the OK Inc. Friends4Friends YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/c/OKInc.