April 2026, Ringling College of Art and Design took center stage at the Sarasota Film Festival, serving as a host venue and showcasing a wealth of student and alumni work across animation, narrative film, and documentary, as well as a forward-looking conversation about the future of cinema itself.
Now in its 28th year, the Sarasota Film Festival ran April 10–19, 2026, celebrating its mission of honoring the art of filmmaking while bringing cultural and educational value to the community. Ringling College’s Morganroth Auditorium, located at 2363 Bradenton Road, served as one of the festival’s key venues for a packed final weekend of screenings and events.
On Friday, April 17, the Morganroth Auditorium hosted an Animated Shorts block featuring 12 films by Ringling College Computer Animation students and recent alumni. The lineup was a testament to the breadth and originality that define the program, spanning wildly different tones, styles, and subject matter.
Among the highlights: Date Knight followed a young knight who donned a handmade dragon costume to catfish a real dragon he matched with on a dating app, only for the scheme to spiral into chaos. Praying for Love took a darkly comic look at a female praying mantis struggling with her cannibalistic tendencies while searching for romance. Dogs of Bishkek sent a young boy named Sasha on a tense, wintry chase through Kyrgyzstan as he tried to bring sausages to his sick mother, only to be stalked by the city’s most fearsome stray. And The Legend of King Nibbles offered a fable about a hamster king brought low by his own greed.
Other films in the block explored themes of identity and self-acceptance (Beautify), the pressures of competitive sports and overbearing parents (Loud and Proud), coexistence between opposites (Total Opposites), and the chaos that ensued when gold miners couldn’t agree (Striking Gold).
On Saturday, April 18, the festival brought a timely and thought-provoking conversation to campus. SFF Talks: AI in Film — What’s Next? in the Morganroth Auditorium was a free event featuring a showcase of AI-made short films followed by a panel discussion with leading voices in the field.
Panelists included Ringling College faculty member Rick Dakan, who is the head of Ringling College’s AI Task Force, launching the new Creative Technologies major, and co-launching the Center for the Creative Economy; Professor John Licato of USF’s Bellini College of AI, Cybersecurity and Computing; and filmmaker and SFF Managing Director Paul Ratner, among other AI educators.
The festival weekend closed on Sunday, April 19, with Best of Ringling Film, a two-hour showcase from noon to 2 pm featuring the strongest short films from Ringling College’s Film department. The program included the premiere of Gamble Creek Farms, a short documentary produced by film students in partnership with Florida Eco Films and Ringling’s Index program. Rounding out the program were five additional short films: Huzzah! directed by Claire Simmons, A1 directed by Emma Holloway, That Really Ruffles My Feathers directed by Colin Kirkpatrick, Beyond Brains directed by Lorena Da Cruz, and The One in Red directed by Nicholas Muzzillo.
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