By Leslie Tang

A Los Altos teen recently ventured behind the camera to talk about being young, Jewish and in love. The result — “Four Short Films About Love,” the collaborative creation of 16-year-old Max Andrews, a Los Altos High School senior, and nine other teens. The 23rd annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival will showcase the film, Sunday through July 31 at the Palo Alto CineArts Theatre.

The festival’s run in Berkeley and San Rafael will also feature the film.

“This will be my first work ever to be publicly shown,” Andrews said. He never had any previous experience with film media or video editing.

The 17-minute film joins more than 30 films and videos internationally selected from independent Jewish cinema, including acclaimed filmmaker Bobby Roth’s “Manhood,” a dark comedy starring John Ritter, Janeane Garofalo and Nester Carbonelli.

“Four Short Films About Love,” was filmed in San Francisco and highlights four aspects of love: parents, siblings, grandparents and romance. “That way we could cover 100 years of family history but also be able to work in our own feelings about our romantic feelings in the present day,” Andrews explained.

He described his film as “charming and uplifting, if at times a bit bittersweet.” The film’s candid audio script was created from interviews the filmmakers conducted on each other. “The viewers will hopefully be left with a new idea of how Jewish teens today identify with themselves, their families and their romantic adventures,” he said.

The students decided to center the film on four people in the group. “Not everyone is seen or heard in the film, yet we all played equal parts in its development,” he said.

Andrews said his previous experience in graphic design and digital art stirred his interest in filmmaking. “The very concept of moving images had me captivated,” he said. “I wanted to do something more than just a personal film project.”

The film is this year’s New Jewish Filmmaker Project. The project was started two years ago by filmmaker Samuel Ball, Andrews said. He said a board of producers funded the project. They offer young filmmakers training, equipment and guidance to enable them to make their own film.

The 10 creators of “Four Short Films About Love” were personally interviewed by Ball and selected out of 50 applicants to work on the film. “We really needed to be able to say that we would commit our time to the project and that we knew what a big deal this was actually going to be,” Andrews said. The other nine students are Rachel Barnett, Alex Baum, Maissa Chouraki, David Cohen, Hannah Lesser, Tamara Rosenfeld, Max Staley, Sophia Teper and Leah Whitman-Salkin.

The students wrote, directed, filmed and edited over a span of about three months. Andrews said the majority of their time was spent writing and editing the script. He explained that everyone put in endless hours of editing. He alone put in more than 70 hours. “A fourth of a second can be the difference between a cheesy cut and a smooth one,” he said.

After the arduous work, the filmmakers can settle back and proudly showcase the final product. “I hope people of all ages enjoy the film and its truthful messages, and I hope it inspires the new group of New Jewish Filmmakers to raise the bar yet again,” Andrews said.

As for his future as the next Steven Spielberg, Andrews is taking it one step at a time. “As for film school, I don’t know . . . but now I know the door is always wide open for me, whichever path I take.”