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Child Filmmakers Screen Movies, Get Honors

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - A group of kids with big hearts and big dreams had an afternoon to remember.

They got the celebrity treatment for making mini movies about their lives.

A number of local kids were honored Saturday afternoon for their achievements in film.

As CBS 2's Cindy Hsu reported, the kids got a real taste of Hollywood in Chelsea at the School of Visual Arts, complete with a red carpet before their movies were screened.

All the kids involved with the project have health problems.

Child filmmaker Vivian Smith has also been adopted. Her brother Otis appeared in her film and also starred in his own movie.

"It was a pretty good experience to just be on camera and do what I do," Otis told Hsu.

Many of the movies featured the kids dancing or singing along to music.

"I'm very happy to be here seeing what I've done and seeing what the other children have done. It's a beautiful thing to be here," said Terrell Cukwujiorah.

The movies and the celebration were both the result of a partnership between two groups: New Alternatives for Children and the Make A Film Foundation.

"We're really looking at the strengths of our kids and they have an opportunity to show what they can do in their voice and their speech and poems," Arlene Goldsmith with New Alternatives for Children told Hsu.

"I think about being in foster care and being adopted," Vivian Smith told Hsu. "But...being able to see it portrayed on film, it really gives me a different perspective."

As part of the event all the kids got their own official Oscar.

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