Sebastian Nazario-Colon graduated from RIT’s film and animation – production option program on May 11, 2024. One year later, Nazario-Colon found himself in France preparing to attend Festival de Cannes, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. Nazario-Colon served as an editor for Fillos do Vento: A RAPA, an 8K, 270-degree sensory documentary that immerses viewers into Spain’s legendary Rapa das Bestas, a 400-year-old Galician ritual that involves cutting the manes of wild horses that live in the mountains near the village of Sabucedo. The immersive projection—which complements a feature-length documentary film set to release in late 2025—was selected from nearly 200 international submissions to premiere at the 78th Festival de Cannes, held May 13-24. Premiering the immersive experience at Cannes seemed far outside the realm of what he thought was possible, according to Nazario-Colon, but he did everything he could to manifest the moment. “When we found out we made it, I was very excited for the ways that this could help my career blossom,” said Nazario-Colon. “Now that I did this, and at such a young age, it feels like the ceiling of what I can achieve got taller. It puts me in a better position to keep working hard to reach new heights that I never could have imagined.” After graduating from RIT, Nazario-Colon, from Middletown, Conn., moved to New York City to look for work. His cousin connected him with a friend who worked at 100 Sutton Studios and, after sharing his résumé, Nazario-Colon was invited for a tour of the facilities. When he arrived, however, he was met with a pleasant surprise. “When I got there, I was greeted by the owner of the studio. He explained that he had been shooting a documentary for seven years. His cousin was the editor, but they wanted some fresh eyes on it,” he said. The owner, Brais Revaldería, saw that Nazario-Colon had a documentary screened at the 2024 New York Latino Film Festival. Nazario-Colon said the film, titled The Boricua’s Dilemma, was one he created as a third-year student at RIT. “He said that my documentary’s screening at the festival made him trust that I was capable as a documentarian, so he offered to hire me as a co-editor for his film,” he said. Nazario-Colon began working with Revaldería in November 2024. While he was originally brought on to co-edit the feature-length documentary, Revaldería came to him one day with a simple idea: what if they repurposed some of the footage for an immersive projection experience, and what if they submitted the experience to Festival de Cannes? ‌ Cinexin Studios Sebastian Nazario-Colon, far left, made his red-carpet premiere at Festival de Cannes last month, exactly one year after he graduated from RIT. Nazario-Colon said he had to change his visual approach entirely when crafting the experience. The documentary footage was captured with traditional screens in mind, but compositional guides like the rule of thirds wouldn’t work with the required aspect ratio for a 270-degree projection. Alternatively, some things that normally wouldn’t translate well on a traditional screen might make for striking immersive visuals for the projection. “Understanding that what you’re looking at on your computer screen isn’t how it was going to appear to audiences was uniquely challenging. Something that is one-inch tall on my laptop was going to be 10-feet tall in person,” he said. While the aspect ratio was a new frontier for Nazario-Colon, he said he felt confident in crafting a narrative for a new medium. He credits the documentary filmmaking courses he took with Assistant Professor Amy Adrion, as well as other faculty mentors like Assistant Professor Vashti Anderson and Lecturer Linda Moroney, for helping to build his skillset as a filmmaker and editor. Nazario-Colon also noted the RIT in LA study away experience and the internship at the Television Academy Foundation he completed while in Los Angeles were pivotal opportunities in his educational journey. Before the debut of the immersive experience at Cannes this year, the in-progress feature film was screened at the 2025 Hot Docs Festival in Canada. Hot Docs is North America’s largest documentary festival and an Oscar-qualifying event. Go to the Fillos do Vento website for more information about the immersive experience and for updates about the feature film.

New findings about intermediate-mass black holes could shed light on some of the universe’s more mysterious components. In a recently published paper, a group of scientists have found new evidence of intermediate-mass black holes, or black holes with masses between 100 and 100,000 times the mass of the sun. While stellar-mass black holes and supermassive black holes are well studied, little is known about intermediate-mass black holes. “These black holes are potentially clues to the fundamental understanding of how everything we see in the universe was ever made,” said Richard O’Shaughnessy, associate professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics and co-author of the paper. “This could be a piece of a puzzle that helps us unlock multiple cosmic mysteries.” By reanalyzing data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors and the Virgo detector, the team was able to discover the heaviest gravitational-wave events recorded in astronomy and report on properties of the previously elusive mid-sized black holes. The paper was led by a team of scientists at Vanderbilt University, including RIT alumni Anjali Yelikar ’24 Ph.D. (astrophysical sciences and technology) and Jacob Lange ’20 Ph.D.(astrophysical sciences and technology), both who worked with O’Shaughnessy in the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation. “Not only was this co-led by former RIT graduate students, but it was based on tools that we developed here at RIT,” said O’Shaughnessy. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and has provided more understanding of how intermediate-mass black holes form and what their properties are, pushing frontiers forward in astronomy. “This is only possible because of the NSF’s decades of investment in providing unique resources and insight,” said O’Shaughnessy. “We are very pleased to take part in this exciting era of discovery.”