In her latest directorial venture, "Pieces of You," Keya Shirali embarks on an emotionally charged exploration of grief, redemption, and the transformative power of storytelling. As a first-year graduate student at the esteemed Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, Shirali's debut short film serves as a remarkable testament to her burgeoning talent and passion for storytelling.

A metaphoric story with a thought-provoking message finds a perfect herald in the short film format. Usually, shorts are more suitable than feature films for this purpose, as they do not have to make up parallel lines of narrative and build interesting characters. Instead, the focus of the screenplay is all in communicating the message. That is what we see in Pieces of You, which brings up the lesson that we cannot mess with the natural progression of time, as the outcome itself is inevitable.

Keya’s Advice: “I would highly recommend being receptive to opportunities of all kinds, especially if you’re as new to your industry of choice as I am. Most of the progress I’ve experienced in these few months – both artistic and personal – has been the result of immersing myself in collaborative environments through projects that electrify me. Don’t confine yourself to learning only a narrow set of skills!”

Chief executive and finance officer of the Carleton Film Society, Keya Shirali, said she shared Ruffett’s view. “Horror films are very socially relevant,” Shirali said. “I feel like if we don’t face up to our ugliness and we run away from it, we’re not really understanding ourselves.”

One of our awesome 8-month Content Marketing assistant co-ops, Keya Shirali, explained the autonomy she was given in guiding what her work term would look like:

“I can’t help but recall one of the questions from my co-op interview, where I was asked if there was something new I would like to learn upon my potential placement at…”