Clarissa Ngo and Imaginate Ink Honored at The MY HERO Film Festival

Clarissa Ngo of Imaginate Ink was honored with the MY HERO Media Educator Award at the 2025 MY HERO Film Festival in January 2026. In addition, 17 of her students were recognized as finalists and award winners across multiple categories, highlighting the extraordinary impact of her mentorship.

Clarissa Ngo

Imaginate Ink is a private creative mentorship program founded nearly three decades ago by Clarissa Ngo, who has dedicated her life to teaching the art of imagination, eloquence, and giving. After graduating from Harvard, Clarissa developed a unique method to help young people write, speak, and act with purpose and power - so their lives can truly bloom. Clarissa’s students learn to create imaginative products that raise funds for causes they care about, giving them the skills to solve real-world problems with empathy and ingenuity.

Clarissa believes genius is created, not born. Her philosophy is grounded in small, daily habits of excellence that, over time, shape young people into articulate, imaginative, and compassionate leaders.

In 2017, sixteen of Clarissa Ngo’s students created a film titled Mission Kidz4Life, which won third place at MY HERO. The film explored the idea of becoming a “secret agent of kindness,” inspired by the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, a shy British stockbroker who organized the Kindertransport, saving 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. By publishing the children’s photographs in newspapers, British families were moved to adopt them, protecting them from being sent to concentration camps.

In 2024, nine of Clarissa’s students won fourteen MY HERO awards. When invited to share their creative process, the students produced a series of downloadable resources, including beautifully designed written tips, video insights, and a 30-minute documentary outlining their approach. 

Read an interview with Clarissa HERE.

See all Imaginate Ink 2025 finalist films here: myhero.com/imaginate-ink-2025-films.

Winning Films  

Middle School Documentary

First Place Nai Nai directed by Emilee Sung, is an ode to her grandmother, who only had a 2nd grade education, yet ran her own restaurant.

Second Place Paradise in a Pencil directed by Emily Song -  a film about how drawing helps heal from hurt.

Third Place A Modern Hero: A Love Story directed by Carter Z Chen - 'A Love Story', the tale of how his grandparents met, married, and have loved each other even through heart-rending loss. This story illuminates that love is not just a feeling but an action and a commitment.

Mattie Stepanek Poetic Film Prize

First Place High School Forgetting to Be Grandpa by Alexander Lyon. When 17-year-old Alexander passes the bust of his grandpa, he remembers who he is supposed to be. This is the very relatable tale of what every human must face: can we pry ourselves from everything that distracts us to honor those who gave us wings?

Alexander LyonMY Hero Film Festival

Said Alexander: “I read your Last Heartsong piece in the Washingtonian both before I created my film Forgetting to Be Grandpa and also after finding out I won, which helped me understand what it means to live with a heartsong, which is something I’ve been struggling with for the past few years. It is never easy to do something heroic, but you and the MY HERO team gave me a path.”

Said Jeni: “I found this to be an incredibly sincere and authentic message about honoring others, especially others who have become vulnerable or are facing some challenges and rising above those challenges to still celebrate them.”

Alexander later wrote a letter to Jeni expressing his feelings on receiving the prize:

Earning this distinction is a key moment in my life because it reveals to me that what I do matters, which is something every human struggles with knowing. I never thought I would be able to create a film that not only moves others but also honors my grandfather, whose legacy leaves big shoes to fill. Making this film also allowed me to both mourn him for the first time in the five years since he passed and make something that put me on the path of my heartsong. It’s the first step in a series of making better choices. Thank you for changing my life and showing me I am capable of more greatness than I ever imagined. I hope to be one of your honorary children - with a new song in my heart.

First Place Middle School  

The End of My Pink Cake Life directed by Alyssa Wu. This is the tale of how 13-year-old Alyssa Wu moved from video-game addicted teen to realizing that treating yourself as a means to an end of pleasure makes your dreams sit on a shelf. 

Said Jeni: “This is a very clever and uplifting piece that's addressing a very serious matter for, uh, many young people in today's world.”

Jeni and AlyssaMY Hero Film Festival

Said Alyssa:  “Winning felt surreal…like flying on the biggest drop of a roller-coaster, but without throwing up afterward. It made me realize: I can do something. Even though I’m imperfect and weird, what I create matters.”

Best Animation Award Presented by Wacom - Middle School

Second Place The End of My Pink Cake Life directed by Alyssa Wu. 

Third Place Untamed Rhymes: Poems to Celebrate Sea Creatures directed by Evan Andrew Cha -  a world where animals live only in the mind!

MY HERO Media Educator Award

Clarissa was also honored with the 2025 MY HERO Media Educator Award in recognition of her extraordinary dedication to teaching storytelling, character, integrity, and courage through film. Watch the presentation here: myhero.com/media-arts-educator-award-2025

MY HERO Film FestivalClarissa Ngo

In receiving the award, said Clarissa:

I bless the day I found MY HERO through Kathy Eldon’s newsletter, for I have seen with my own eyes the power of what MY HERO does and everything it teaches my students. First, making a MY HERO film teaches you how to tell an unsung hero’s story or your unsung hero story in the most-watched medium.Why does this matter? No one wants to feel powerless, voiceless, and invisible. Telling a story effectively in film involves learning both verbal and visual storytelling for good. 

Second, MY HERO teaches you how to celebrate what’s positive in the world. With all the bad news we hear, learning how to move people’s hearts for the greater good is vital to our mental health. Also, it gives us the energy to give more to others when we are inspired by stories of people choosing to be gritty and good.

Third, MY HERO teaches you how to transform yourself from an average mortal to a gritty hero. If you choose to tell your unsung hero story, this teaches you to think of yourself as a potential hero in the trenches, fighting for good! It also teaches you to be meticulous, think outside-the-box, and make something beautiful and useful that lifts up others. It is essentially learning character.

And for my seventeen students who won this year and my ten students who won last year, I have seen how being told you matter and what you make matters changes you. You have seen that making something great is not about genius. It is about caring about something so much that you are willing to sacrifice for it.

I want to thank the entire MY HERO team and also Esther Wojcicki, Kathy Eldon, and Jeni Stepaneck for helping me inspire my students to become better humans and lighthouses in the world.  This is what a true education is supposed to be.

To find out more about Clarissa and Imaginate Ink, go to: www.imaginateink.com

About the MY HERO International Film Festival

The My Hero Film Festival is an annual event dedicated to showcasing films that celebrate the power of the human spirit. The festival provides a platform for filmmakers to share inspirational stories of everyday heroes. Thanks to generous sponsors, prizes are awarded to elementary, middle school, high school, college, and professionals in a variety of categories, including documentary, narrative, music video, animation, experimental, and more.

The festival aims to inspire audiences to recognize the heroism in their own lives and encourage positive actions in their communities. Learn more.