Laura Hinson
- Additional Positions at AU
- Director, Community Voice Lab
- Co-Head, Documentary Concentration
- Degrees
- MFA, Film and Electronic Media, American University
BA, Political Science and Communication, Furman University - Bio
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Laura Waters Hinson is an award-winning filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film at American University. Her new feature documentary, Strange Ashes, will make its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival in October 2026. She is the director of five feature documentaries and four short films that have screened at more than 100 film festivals and at the U.S. Congress, United Nations, and Smithsonian National Gallery of Art, with broadcasts on PBS, WORLD, ShortsTV, and Curiosity Stream. Her short documentary The Test (2024) won six major festival awards for Best Documentary and qualified for the Oscars. In 2025, she launched a PBS documentary series, the Community Voice Lab Doc Series, on WETA-PBS. Laura serves as the director of the Community Voice Lab and co-head of the film division's documentary concentration.
Laura’s films focus on personal journeys, especially among women, exploring themes of reconciliation, human resilience, and entrepreneurship. Her first feature documentary, As We Forgive, about Rwanda’s reconciliation movement and narrated by Mia Farrow, won the 2008 student Academy Award for best documentary, the Cinema for Peace Award in Berlin, and was broadcast nationally on public television.
Since 2009 have screened at dozens of international film festivals such as the Big Sky Documentary Film Fest, Santa Barbara International Film Fest, Palm Springs ShortFest, Austin Film Fest, Seattle Human Rights Film Fest, Pan African Film Fest, Heartland Film Fest, Manchester Film Fest, among many others.
Her feature documentary about the 3D printed housing revolution, Project Home, was released in September 2023 by 1091 Pictures and is available on Apple+, Amazon and other digital platforms. Laura’s earlier film, Street Reporter, won the Jury Award for Best Short Documentary at the Annapolis Film Festival 2022, the Social Impact Media Award for Creative Activism and the Audience Choice Award at the 2021 Austin Film Festival and the Indy Shorts Film Festival. Prior to this, she directed Mama Rwanda, a documentary about the new generation of women entrepreneurs in Rwanda transforming their nation after genocide, supported by the National Geographic All Roads Film Project.
During the Spring of 2019, Laura served as the director's shadow on the set of Showtime's Homeland. In 2018, she directed her first narrative short, a dark romantic comedy called Moving Violation, which starred Milana Vayntrub and won Best Narrative Short at the DC Independent Film Festival.
At American University, Laura serves as director of the Community Voice Lab (CVL), which produces an annual film series capturing the voices of marginalized DC community residents. The CVL series is streaming on PBS.org: https://www.pbs.org/show/community-voice-lab-at-american-university
Laura received her MFA in Film and Electronic Media from American University and a BA in Political Science and Communication from Furman University. She lives with her husband and three children in Washington, DC.
Teaching
Fall 2025
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COMM-702 Master's Portfolio Capstone
Spring 2026
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COMM-486 Directing the Documentary
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COMM-702 Master's Portfolio Capstone
Fall 2026
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COMM-702 Master's Portfolio Capstone