Rob Sabal

Rob Sabal has been a filmmaker and media educator for more than 30 years. Sabal received his MFA in film and video from Northwestern University and has taught film and video production at St. Edward’s University, Trinity University (San Antonio), the University of Arizona, the University of Texas-Austin, and at Emerson College where he served as director of the film program and as chair of the Department of Visual and Media Arts prior to his appointment as dean of the School of the Arts. In 2012 – 2013 he was an ACE Fellow in the president’s office at Suffolk University. He is a former president of the University Film and Video Association. Sabal begins his tenure as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Maryland Institute College of Art on July 12, 2023. 

Sabal has produced more than 20 narrative and experimental films that have screened at national and international film festivals. His feature narrative, Escape to White Mountain, was distributed internationally and broadcast/cablecast in Latin America, the Middle East, and Korea. Sabal’s work has been supported with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arizona Council on the Arts, the Arizona Humanities Council, and the DeGrazia Foundation. He is the recipient of the Arizona Artist Award.

Sabal’s writing about filmmaking and film education has been published in the Independent Film and Video Monthly, NewEnglandFilm.com and the Journal of Film and Video. He has guest edited two special issues of the Journal of Film and Video, one on media production pedagogy and one on approaches to teaching collaboration in media production.