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Posts by Tony Collins

Tony Collins, EdD, MFA is a documentary filmmaker, teacher, musician, writer, and consultant with forty years of experience. His work explores creative expression, scholarly rigor, and nonfiction storytelling across the USA, Central America, Asia, and the UAE. In 2025, he is self-publishing Creative Scholarship: Rethinking Evaluation in Film and New Media on Amazon, challenging traditional academic assessment in film and new media. Website: anthonycollinsfilm.com

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Walking My Mother Home: On Aging, Love, and Letting Go

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“To love someone deeply is to learn the art of holding on and letting go—sometimes at the very same time.” ~Unknown

Nothing has softened me—or challenged me—like caring for my ninety-six-year-old mother as she slowly withdraws from the world. I thought I was strong, but this is a different kind of strength—one rooted in surrender, not control.

She once moved with rhythm and faith—attending Kingdom Hall for over sixty years, sharp in mind and dressed with dignity. She’s a fine and good Christian woman, often compared to Julie Andrews for her beauty and radiant grace. But now, she rarely gets …

How to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders)

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“If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over time, cease to react at all.” ~Yogi Bhajan

Several years ago, I hiked into the remote forestlands of Bukidnon, a mountainous province in the southern Philippines. I was there to make a documentary about the Pulangiyēn people, an Indigenous community living in the village of Bendum. No roads led there. No running water. Just a winding trail upwards, a slow-moving carabao pulling my camera gear, and …

How I Learned to Be Present—One Sound at a Time

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“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” ~Miles Davis

When I first read that quote, it hit me right in the chest. Not because it sounded profound—but because it was something I had been slowly, painfully learning over the course of a very quiet, very long year.

Time used to feel like a race. Or maybe a shadow. Or a trickster. Some days, it slipped through my fingers like water. Other days, it dragged me along like a heavy cart. But always, it was something outside me—something I was chasing or trying to escape.

I spent much of …

To the Dreamers Reading This, I Want You to Know…

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There I was, eating cereal and watching a CNN documentary about Kobe Bryant—yes, I mix deep life reflection with Raisin Bran—when his old speech teacher said something that made me pause mid-chew. He described Kobe’s approach to life as giving everything—heart, soul, and body—to his craft. No halfway. Just all in.

I sat there thinking, “Yes! That’s it!” That’s the very thing I try to convey to my students in class, usually while making wild arm gestures and accidentally knocking over a marker cup. I believe in that philosophy with every fiber of my chalk-dusted being.

High Risk, Deep

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The Power of Silence and How to Really Listen

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“The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.”  ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

When I was younger, I thought knowledge was something you could capture—something you could write down, measure, and prove. I believed that to understand something, I had to explain it. And for a long time, I tried.

But then, life—through film, through music, through long conversations with people whose wisdom couldn’t be found in books—taught me something else: the most powerful truths don’t always come in words. They exist in the space between them.

I learned this lesson in the mountains, where the sky stretches …