Laura Kissel, MFA

Associate Professor
Media Arts
Film and Media Studies Program

Courses

• The Moving Image (MART 371)
• Documentary Production (MART 553)
• Principles of Production: Theory and Practice (MART 710)
• The Role of Research in Media Production (MART 796)
• special topics

Education

• MFA, Radio-TV-Film, Northwestern University (1999)
• BS, Cinema and Photography, Ithaca College (1991)

Bio

Laura Kissel is an Emmy nominated documentary filmmaker whose work explores social/cultural landscapes, the representation of history, and the use of orphan films. She was named the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Media Arts Fellow for 2007-2008 and has received numerous fellowships and grants for her work including a Fulbright Award (2009), a MacDowell Fellowship (2006), and funding from the South Carolina Humanities Council (2003 and 2008). Her educational travelogue documentary Beyond the Classroom: China (2007) was awarded a CINE Golden Eagle and 3 Telly Awards in 2008. Cabin Field, a non-fiction essay film, was honored with three festival awards including the Jurors’ Citation Award at the 2006 Black Maria Film and Video Festival. Kissel has also published articles in academic journals, including the Journal of Visual Culture on the subject of the long take. An essay on the representation of disability was published in 2009 in the book Filming Difference (University of Texas Press).

Scholarship

Kissel is currently at work on “Cotton Road”, a documentary about transnational cotton, global workers, and the link between production and consumption. For more information: www.laurakissel.net/cottonroad