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Earlier this year, I was contacted by Kody Ford, Arkansas Cinema Society's Director of Statewide Programs & Outreach. He asked me to be a part of ACS's selection committee for its annual film festival, Filmland. And after watching hours upon hours of short films and features, some good, some great and some mind-numbingly bad, the time has come to screen the proverbial cream of the crop, at the newly renovated Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.

This past week I found myself at my old alma mater as the University of Central Arkansas hosted five new short films written, directed and produced by the graduating class from UCA's Master's film program. This annual screening is an event I look forward to attending each year, though the pandemic years made the screening process a little more complicated.

I graduated in 2015 from the University of Central Arkansas' masters of fine arts film program. My graduating class produced three filmmakers that year, all three of us white, male, and in our 30s. Now that I'm thinking about it, the previous class also had three white, male students. Even the graduating class after mine had the same: three white, male students. Among the nine of us, the majority of our short films focused on horror and science fiction, but I guess when you have such a small pool of students, there are only so many different stories they can tell.