In 2018, New Jersey School Boards Association teamed up with Steven Van Zandt’s Rock and Roll Forever Foundation to present the Sonic Highways Hometown Documentaries film festival at the annual Workshop Conference.

Finalists in the Workshop 2018 film festival, Middletown High School, recently entered the Garden State Film Festival, a large annual event that showcases more than 230 films over four days. The Middletown High School film, “Sonic Highways Middletown: A Rock and Roll Story,” which originally debuted at Workshop, won in the category “Home Grown Student Documentary Short – High School.”

The film includes interviews with Van Zandt and Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez of the E Street Band; former Bruce Springsteen manager Carl “Tinker” West; New Jersey Shore guitar legend Sonny Kenn; New Jersey Shore musician Jacko Monahan; Eileen Chapman of the official Springsteen archives and Dave Witte, the Middletown-born drummer for Municipal Waste.

The presentation of the film took place on March 30 at the Garden State Film Festival, which was attended by over 26,000 celebrities, honorees, film industry execs and movie fans. Learn more about the Garden State Film Festival.