Media Arts Alum featured in “Louisianans in the spotlight”
Sarah Devlin
Eighteen-year-old New Orleans native Sarah Devlin has already established herself as a true artist in a field you might not expect: she’s a filmmaker.
Devlin graduated in May from Ben Franklin High School, but she also spent three years studying media arts at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Louisiana’s arts conservatory for high school students.
She started gaining recognition for her talents at the age of 14, when she made a short film called “Writer’s Block” for a class assignment. Nominated by a teacher, Devlin’s film won three awards at the Louisiana Film Festival, including Best of Festival.
Devlin’s movies won the prestigious Scholastic Art and Writing gold medal, good for a $10,000 scholarship. Out of 200,000 students from the United States who applied, only 15 won portfolio gold medals. In July, Devlin traveled to Carnegie Hall in New York City, where she gave a speech and was honored as a gold medal winner. A collection of her films was shown for a week at Parsons School of Design and will be featured later in the year on tour across the country.
This past fall, she started teaching filmmaking and animation to fourth and fifth graders at Lusher Elementary in New Orleans. She says she really enjoys teaching kids, and it has opened her eyes to a new way of making film.
Devlin will start college at Loyola University in the spring and plans to study French. She will soon have an exhibit at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, where three of her films will be shown beginning in October. Watch Sarah’s latest video below!