Special guest founder James Kennedy. The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is an annual video contest in which kid filmmakers create weird movies that tell the entire stories of Newbery-winning books in about 90 seconds. Every year, the best movies are shown at gala screenings all over the country—co-hosted by founder James Kennedy and other great children’s authors. This year, Rochester, NY is one of the lucky cities that will host a gala screening at the Dryden Theater.