Reflections from a 2-Day Filmmaking Workshop at the University of Antique
What if the reason some students seem disengaged isn’t a lack of talent — but a lack of permission to pursue what actually moves them?
I’ve been sitting with that question for years. It followed me through my time as a university faculty member, through a quiet but necessary decision to step back from the classroom — and back into something I already knew, deep in my bones, was where I belonged.
We’ve been facilitating WRITE, SHOOT, CUT, PLAY — a Basic Filmmaking Workshop — since 2008. Long before the faculty role, I already knew what a room full of willing learners felt like. It was the classroom experience that sharpened the contrast, and eventually made the choice clear.
Willing learners change everything.
A Season of Classrooms
I have deep respect for teachers. What they carry — the patience, the structure, the daily commitment to showing up for students who are at very different places in their lives — is something I genuinely admire.
But I’ll be honest: I struggled in that role.
Not because the students were bad. Many of them were bright, creative, and full of potential. But we’re still largely running an education system built for a different era — one designed to produce graduates, not necessarily fulfilled human beings. And within that system, a student who hasn’t yet found their why can easily disappear into the requirements, the seat hours, and the pressure to just get the diploma done.
As a University instructor, that was hard to sit with. Because what I saw in many of those classrooms weren’t disinterested students — they were young people doing what they were told, in a course that hadn’t yet spoken to something real inside them. And when it came time to assign grades, I kept asking myself: who does this number actually serve?
I didn’t have a comfortable answer. And the longer I sat with it, the more I kept coming back to a feeling I already knew from years of facilitating workshops — the difference between a student who is required to be there and one who chose to be there. I had lived both sides of that room. So I made a decision: to go back to the work that had always felt most alive. Not because the classroom broke me, but because the workshop had always been calling me back.
If you’ve ever felt like you were working hard inside a structure that wasn’t quite built for the work you actually wanted to do — you’ll understand exactly what I mean.
The Energy of a Room That Wants to Learn
Workshops are where I’ve always found my answer — and returning to them only deepened what I already knew.
There’s something that happens when you stand in front of people who chose to be in that room. I first felt it in 2008 when I ran my earliest filmmaking workshops. I felt it again when I picked it back up in 2019. And I felt it once more last weekend, facilitating a 2-day Cine Kasubay Filmmaking Workshop at the University of Antique as part of the celebration of National Heritage Month and in preparations for the Cine Kasubay Film Festival.
From the first session, I felt that current — the kind that reminds you why you started.
These were students who wanted to make films. They leaned in. They asked the questions they were actually thinking. They made creative decisions without waiting to be told what the right answer was. And somewhere in the middle of day one, I remembered something important:
The best teaching doesn’t feel like teaching at all. It feels like unlocking.
That kind of room doesn’t just shape students. It restores the person standing in front of them.
One Room at a Time
I carry a long-term purpose: to impact millions of lives — through stories, through movement, through ideas that outlast the moment they were shared in.
But here’s what I’ve learned about big purposes: they don’t arrive all at once. They compound. They’re built in rooms like the one I stood in last weekend — with students who are just beginning to realize that their stories are worth telling, that their creative instincts are valid, that filmmaking isn’t just a skill set but a way of seeing the world more honestly.
One of those students might make a film someday that changes how someone thinks. That someone might change how a community moves. And it traces back, quietly, to this two-day workshop where someone decided to take their curiosity seriously.
That’s the work. It doesn’t always look like impact from the outside. But it is.
One Stop in a Larger Journey
This workshop also came at a personally meaningful time.
I’m currently building a series of film talks — conversations about cinema, storytelling, and the basic need for visual communication — and the Cinekasubay workshop has been one of the most energizing stops on that road so far. It sharpened my thinking, pushed me to put language to things I usually only feel, and reminded me that the best sessions aren’t performances.
They’re conversations with people who are ready for them.
There are more stops ahead. More rooms. More festivals, workshops, and students who don’t yet know what they’re capable of.
I can’t wait to find them.
And if that student is you — or if you’re an educator, organizer, or institution looking to create that kind of space — let’s talk.
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