Kristin Kinsey
For Kristin Kinsey, Time’s Up and #MeToo are not just movements making national news. The young filmmaker is actively combating discrimination and sexual harassment/abuse.
One way is through the content of the work she creates as she pursues her degree in electronic media and film (EMF) at Towson University.
Kinsey’s film “Out Loud,” which she wrote and directed for an upper-level filmmaking class, features a woman choosing what to do with a voodoo doll of her rapist after she loses a court case against him. “Out Loud” was accepted to five regional film festivals, winning three awards, including Best Short Drama at the District Cinema Student Film Festival in Washington, D.C, and Best Screenplay at the Salisbury Film Festival.
Additionally, Kinsey participates in an initiative within the EMF department to nurture opportunities for female and minority students and offer training on creating an equitable environment.
She says that lecturer Jena Richardson, who leads the initiative, is both an industry mentor and a “female mentor,” helping her “navigate this male-dominated industry as a woman.”
“ The department does a really good job at bringing in guest speakers. ”
Kinsey credits mentorship from faculty, including Richardson and writer/producers Marc May and Joseph Kraemer, with making Towson University a “solid” place to train in filmmaking. Those mentors, she says, offer helpful feedback in and outside class, as well as providing networking opportunities.
“The department does a really good job at bringing in guest speakers,” says Kinsey, “That’s given me a sense of what the industry is like and connections that I can call on.”
She can also call on a strong network of peers from the student media production group Lambda Kappa Tau, whom Kinsey says support each other’s projects and refer each other for jobs.
The group, she adds, has been “invaluable.”