Behind the Lens: Filmmaking Faculty Screening
Published: November 18, 2025 | Author: Kol Gibson | Read Time: 4 minutes
Southern Utah University invites the campus and community to an evening celebrating the creativity, craft, and cinematic vision of its Filmmaking faculty. In conjunction with the Filmmaking, Art, & Design Faculty Exhibition at Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA), SUU will host a Filmmaking Faculty Screening on Thursday, November 20, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. in Bristlecone Hall, Room 105. Light refreshments and popcorn will be served. Admission is free and open to all.
The screening will feature recent and notable works by Katherine (Katie) Hadar, Bill Kershisnik, and Jahanara Saleh, showcasing diverse perspectives and approaches to storytelling through film.
Katie Hadar creates visual narratives centered on time, memory, and the complex relationships between people and landscapes in the American West. Working across charcoal, ink, film, and text, Katie’s films have premiered at the Sun Valley and New Orleans Film Festivals. Her work often explores themes of ownership and stewardship, poverty and profit, and the fragile balance between human ambition and wild spaces.
Katie will present her 2013 work Circle to the Left, the second in a triptych of childhood memory films. Set in the rural West and filmed on location in Montana, the short follows a young girl navigating second grade and the emotional highs and lows of a winter field trip. The film premiered at the Sun Valley Film Festival and has screened internationally.
Bill Kershisnik, associate professor of communication media studies at SUU, is a celebrated screenwriter known for projects such as Shark, Things I Remember, and The Aquabats! RadVentures! His recent teleplay The Long Con won Best Comedy Teleplay at the Austin Comedy Film Festival and was a finalist at several national festivals, including the Nantucket Film Festival.
Bill will share two comedic episodes from The Aquabats! RadVentures!. The Mauler! (2020) in which The Aquabats team up with the Invisible Man (played by Jon Heder) to stop a threat during the grand opening of a grocery store. EagleBones Gets a Cape! (2021) follows lead guitarist EagleBones FalconHeart as he ventures into the realm of magic when he purchases a mysterious artifact from the “Mystical Dark Web.”
Jahanara Saleh, an award-winning Iranian writer, director, and producer, brings a bold and distinctive voice to narrative filmmaking. Raised in Tehran and now an assistant professor of Filmmaking and Program Coordinator at SUU, her films have screened internationally, and she continues to develop new film and television projects.
Jahanara will present two projects. The first is Far From Home, a piece edited by Saleh, following Iranian alpine skier Forough Abbasi as she prepares for her second Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang. The second, Brave New World, is a gripping short film that follows the aftermath of a terrorist attack at an elementary school, where a miraculous outcome and reports of angelic visions challenge the boundaries between tragedy and the divine. Content warning: Brave New World includes some violence involving children.
This special screening offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the films shaping SUU’s Filmmaking program and the creative work of its faculty artists. Join us for an inspiring and engaging evening of storytelling on screen. For more information about Filmmaking at SUU, visit www.suu.edu/pva/art/film.
About the College of Performing and Visual Arts
The College of Performing and Visual Arts (CPVA) at Southern Utah University comprises 41 academic programs including liberal arts (BA/BS) and professional (BFA, BM, BMEd) degrees in art, design, dance, filmmaking, music, and theatre. It includes graduate programs in the fields of arts administration (MFA, MA), music education (MME), and music technology (MM). More than 60 full-time faculty and staff are engaged in teaching and mentoring over 900 majors in the College. CPVA presents over 100 performances, lectures, presentations, and exhibitions each year which are complemented by the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA) and Shakespeare Studies at SUU, and is affiliated with the Tony award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival (USF). Southern Utah University is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Art & Design (NASAD), National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD), National Association of Schools of Music (NASM), and the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST) making SUU the first public university in the state of Utah to be accredited by all four associations. For more information about the College of Performing and Visual Arts, visit www.suu.edu/pva.Tags: Art and Design Filmmaking Art Faculty Filmmaking Art and Design Community College of Performing and Visual Arts
Contact Information:
Kol Gibson
435-865-8667
kolgibson@suu.edu