Arielle Borges Wins Moser Taboada Arts Impact Scholarship

Holmdel’s Arielle Borges is a young lady with a vision. The 18-year-old recent graduate of Holmdel High School has been making films since she was 15. In her short career, she has earned numerous awards including The Scholastic Gold Key for her Social Impact Film Portfolio, comprising three films dealing with social issues: “Stars,” “Traffic” and “Conflicted.” She won the Count Basie Best High School Documentary two years in a row: in 2022 for “Stars Program” and in 2023 for “Rockit.” She also took first place in the Holmdel High School Film Fest and won the Roger Benedict Award of Excellence in Cinematography.

Earlier this summer, this dedicated artist was the recipient of the $2,500 Count Basie Moser Taboada Arts Impact Scholarship for two essays on her personal experiences in the arts and her philosophy about the role of the arts.

Borges is an acoustic guitarist, and her involvement in the Rockit Academy Foundation led her to create her most recent documentary, “Rockit! The Making of a Musician.” Through interviews and B-roll footage, she exhibited the hard work and passion that the talented students bring to each performance.  This documentary has been a winner and finalist in several film festivals, such as New Jersey Film Contest, Ramapo College Film Festival and Pegasus film Festival.

Just before the groundbreaking film “Sound of Freedom” shined a light on the plague of human trafficking, Borges was the first-place winner for her three-minute silent short called “Traffic.” She earned this honor in a national video contest, themed “What Would You Do?” conducted by the Alliance to End Human Trafficking to raise awareness, educate and empower students on how to identify and prevent human trafficking. Borges had been unfamiliar with this crime before making the film but is now happy that her film is a vehicle to raise awareness of this horrific crime which forces individuals into human slavery and becoming sex slaves.

Read the full story by Lori Draz on The Journal NJ.

Category: Academia, The Alliance to End Human Trafficking