2026 Festival of the Creative Arts<\/a> (FCA), the event showcased eight student-produced short films. The curated selection bridged the gap between the filmmakers\u2019 formative years in Tallahassee and their current professional careers at industry titans like DreamWorks.<\/p>\nThe genres ranged from the puppetry of Kyra Gardner\u2019s \u201cPhoebe\u201d to Farsi-English drama \u201cHasti Joon\u201d by Emmy nominee Sara Karimipour. A singular theme ran throughout the evening: the search for belonging. David Barrow Wiley, filmmaker-in-residence at the College of Motion Picture Arts, noted the creative impact and formative influence that students experience through their time in the college.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn any arts collective, you go through a process of finding out who you are and seeing how that resonates against the space you occupy,\u201d Wiley said. \u201cWhen students come here, they start to see who they are. That changes their relationship with the world and how they respond back to the family they were assigned at birth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The program highlighted the technical and emotional risks that define the FSU film experience. In one notable example, the entire crew of Summer Schantz\u2019s \u201cPink is the Color of the Ocean\u201d dyed their hair pink and ran into the ocean to mark the end of filming, both manifestations of the \u201cchosen family\u201d found on set.<\/p>\n
![\"(Left](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/FSU-photos-230.jpg\")
(Left to right) David Barrow Wiley, Laura Lee and Iain Quinn. (Casey McCarthy \/ Florida State University)<\/p>\n
For Wiley, who previously served as the college\u2019s head of set operations, the screening was a deeply personal return to FSU. He recalled a phrase he used to tell his students while teaching them the rigors of production safety: \u201cI need you to sow this into your soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually, I was talking about being safe on set and wrapping cables correctly but seeing them come back and share how those years shaped their voices \u2014 that\u2019s the real family connection,\u201d Wiley said. \u201cTheir trajectory in the industry is emotional for me because it\u2019s clear that they have kept themselves safe while garnering substantive work and accolades.\u201d<\/p>\n
The screening was followed by a Q&A session where Wiley and lecturer Laura Lee shared reflections sent in by the alumni, many of whom are now working as staff writers, directors and cinematographers.<\/p>\n
Iain Quinn, director of FCA, noted that the event serves as a centerpiece for the university\u2019s commitment to interdisciplinary engagement. By opening the screening to the public, the university strengthens its ties with a community that provides the actors, locations and support necessary for student success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are a film school reliant on the community,\u201d Wiley said. \u201cThese collaborations have sewn the film school into the fabric of Tallahassee.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Barrow Wiley and Laura Lee present during \u201cFinding Your Family\u201d at the Askew Student Life Center as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[65109,58515,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-191158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-college-of-motion-picture-arts","tag-festival-of-the-creative-arts","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/FSU-photos-234-1200x800.jpg\")
David Barrow Wiley and Laura Lee present during \u201cFinding Your Family\u201d at the Askew Student Life Center as part of FSU’s annual Festival of the Creative Arts. (Casey McCarthy \/ Florida State University)\t\t<\/p>\n