Frank Sanna, MFA

As a teacher my primary goal is to help students discover and better understand their 'voice' as a unique and valid perspective in dialogue with the world.

In creative practice I explore traditional and hybrid forms of documentary and fiction filmmaking to express an eclectic range of feelings and ideas about human belonging and identity. My research interests (anthropological and philosophical) have evolved considering, amongst others, the work of Gaston Bachelard, Ernesto Grassi, Michael Polanyi, and Elizabeth Sewell, respecting how each maintains the validity of subjectivity in their worldviews. In other practical ways, my academic engagement has been informed by an extensive experience in the film and television Art Department, working as Art Director,Graphic Designer, and in various other roles.

At heart, my research-creation is a response that recognises a poetic framework to our knowing and being in the world, speaking of ways that we search for, discover, and create meaning out of shared embodied experience. In this way, I try to express an emotional truth about our evolving need for structure, orientation, and connection. I place value on the reality and necessity of feelings while striving to bridge the artificial gaps between Art and Science that have come to define our cultural sensibilities.

Education

BA,Graphic Design, Sheridian College / MFA, Studio Arts: Film Production, Concordia University

Courses

COMS 485 – Moving Images III
COMS 384 – Moving Images II
COMS 284 – Moving Images I
COMS 276 – Sound I
COMS 569 – Graduate Diploma Moving Images

FMPR 239 – Montage I
FMPR 231 – Filmmaking I