The first noticeable problem with this film is the stark difference between the high-grade stock footage used in select scenes and the decent-but-not-great footage shot on scene. There are two ways to fix this. You can either lower the quality of the stock footage artificially by compressing it to a similar quality as your shot footage and color correcting it to match or shoot with a higher quality camera and color correcting it to match your stock footage. I recommend the former for you as it requires much less of a budget.
The second thing that shot out, or rather didn't, is the individual audio and mixing quality that spanned the entire film. Many words and sentences were lost due to the volume captured and mixed. Good emotional acting was also lost due to this. Additionally, the impact and environmental sounds massively overshot the bar on what should have been your maximum volume across the movie. A way to help with the individual audio is to either get separate lav mics for each actor and place them correctly (ensuring that the audio sounds good before proceeding with the recording) or to use phones as the audio capture device for each person. If you have the budget, get 4-5 lav mics as you shouldn't have more than 4-5 speaking in a scene anyways. Otherwise, just use the actors' phones and tape or affix some other way close to the mouth without showing on camera.
One thing that I have to applaud is the acting across the board. While there were some misses with certain sentences, it was overall very impressive. The emotional scenes were well done and portrayed, even though they could have played out a little longer in certain areas.
The most atrocious thing about this film was the filming itself. Framing was constantly held with the neck at center, forehead out of frame, and shaking when unnecessary and unwanted. There is an art to framing. There is a time and place for what was just described. Framing like that should be used to focus attention or to create tension within the audience, not to have them stare at it for the majority of the movie. The only way to improve framing is to continue practicing and receive critique from as many people as possible. Take your time with it and don't overthink how you want a scene to make the audience feel. One thing that can help with this is to shoot a bit wide initially and then crop into whatever looks best as the frame. This requires a good camera to make sure that quality is not lost by doing this, but it is worth it if you are unsure about how a scene should look in the end.
I'm glad to see this film being made. I see a talented cast of people that can make incredible films. Improve on your craft with intent; don't just stomp through what could be a good legacy.
