I have always loved storytelling. My mother says I read more books by the time I was ten years old than she has read in her entire life. As I got older this love of stories evolved to include television and film. I really started to become interested in working in film as I got more frustrated with the intersection between the literature I loved and the films I watched that tried to capture those stories. Book to screen adaptations simply aren’t often good. I believed I could make them better, and to some extent I still do with the right experience and training, so I decided to study film in college. I began work on my Film Studies degree from Case Western Reserve University in 2012 under the advisement of Professor Robert Spadoni who would become a huge support to me throughout. I had to create my major from classes and projects that existed at CWRU because they did not have a specific film degree program at that time. With the help of Professor Spadoni I was able to get my course of study approved by the university so that my diploma would say I completed a BA in Film Studies. Over time, as I studied more films and genres and films from countries I had never seen cinema from before, my focus shifted from cinematic adaptations of books to a true love and deep respect for the art of filmmaking itself. I had no idea, upon starting my time studying film, how much of an impact it would have on my life or how much fun I would have learning as much as I possibly could about filmmaking. The summer after my junior year at CWRU, I attended a filmmaking workshop program at the New York Film Academy in New York City. This was an incredibly affirming, informative, and helpful experience for me. I created three separate short films including the short that I submitted to the Short. Sweet. Film Fest. in 2015 during my senior year at CWRU. After my graduation with a BA in Film Studies from CWRU, I began working for the Short. Sweet. Film Fest. and have since become its Director of Operations. I hope to continue to grow my involvement in the festival, the Cleveland film scene, and film creation and analysis in general as time goes on. This is what I truly love to do.