Though film festivals like Cannes and Sundance are designed to celebrate world-famous directors, the Roxbury Film Festival gives a voice to local filmmakers and sensitive topics that are normally overlooked, program directors said.

Fast Forward, an after-school Institute of Contemporary Art year-long program, gives Boston public high school students film production equipment and the opportunity to enter their creations in the Roxbury festival.

The program is screening some of the Roxbury festival’s award-winning films and documentaries at the ICA this weekend. Winning submissions from the youth category were shown on Thursday.

Program director Joe Douillette said the intimacy of the classroom lets students have discussions about serious subjects related to their film topics.

Last year, a student made a film about her struggle with her alcoholic mother. This year, Douillette said one of his 19 students pitched a film about gang life.

Students who chose “heavy” film topics take their filmmaking seriously, making their films feel more earnest, Douillette said.

“There’s much more personal investment,” he said.

About 60 students and a few teachers attended the two screenings. Douillette said the “satisfactory” turnout means the festival and the ICA will be working more closely in the future.

Lisa Simmons, executive director of the Color of Film Collaborative, a nonprofit group that supports minority filmmakers, said the student projects in the Roxbury Film Festival have surprised adults with their insight.

The Color of Film, in conjunction with the arts, culture and trade consortium ACT Roxbury, has hosted the festival for the past 10 years. They have accepted student submissions for the last three years and many of the pieces reflect the students’ quests for identity and desires for social change, Simmons said.

“These kids are social activists . . . they’re always thinking about how they fit in this world,” she said.

Simmons called the students’ work “unencumbered” because their filmmaking style is free of the manipulation and cynicism that often comes with an adult’s perspective.

“They have a much wider, open mind about topics and things that adults wouldn’t necessarily approach,” she said. “[Students] just go out and shoot and the story just seems to come out fresh.”

Hampshire College freshman Dre Woodberry said the inspiration for his festival submission came from the four months he spent homeless while still in high school.

His 11-minute documentary, What’s It Like To Be Homeless, was shown Thursday at the ICA and with six youth-produced films screened at last year’s festival.

Woodberry said the Color of Film Collaborative gave him the opportunity to disprove stereotypes about homeless people being “crazy” or lazy. He said he panhandled for about three hours for a segment of his film and made less than $3. One woman told him she would not give him money because he “didn’t look homeless,” he said.

“I felt dehumanized because of the way people reacted,” he said. “They didn’t even pay attention to me. It’s hard to tell if anyone is homeless because they could just look like anyone else. It could have been a real serious situation that no one knows about . . . it could be them some day.”

The adult-produced film shorts from the Roxbury Film Festival will be screened at the ICA Sunday at 3 and 5 p.m.