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About the Community Voice Lab
The Community Voice Lab produces films that capture the voices of community storytellers too often unseen and unheard. The creative ethos of Community Voice is that of collaboration, rather than extraction, in which our filmmakers and local storytellers work together to tell stories of hope, resilience and determination for the common good.
Our films primarily focus on storytellers within the Washington, DC area, but we also partner with filmmakers whose projects align with our model of collaborative storytelling and community journalism. While most of our films are documentaries, some students have applied the principles of collaborative filmmaking in their fiction projects.
Community Voice Lab is directed by Laura Waters Hinson, an award-winning filmmaker and professor within the Film and Media Arts Division at AU’s School of Communication. Each year, her “Community Documentary” course produces the Community Voice Film Series, an anthology of short documentaries produced by graduate and undergraduate filmmaking students in collaboration with local storytellers. Our goal is to promote diversity and inclusion efforts into the learning outcomes of our students as we seek to serve as conscientious citizens of the wider DC community.
The project is a proud partner of the Center for Media and Social Impact.
View our latest films on WETA PBS
To learn more about partnership opportunities or to apply for a fellowship, please contact us.
Director
Laura Waters Hinson
Laura Waters Hinson is an award-winning filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film at American University. Laura’s films focus on personal journeys, especially among women, exploring themes of reconciliation, resilience, community building and entrepreneurship. Her first feature documentary, AS WE FORGIVE, about Rwanda’s reconciliation movement, won the 2008 student Academy Award for best documentary, the Cinema for Peace Award in Berlin, and was broadcast nationally on U.S. public television.
At AU, Laura directs SOC’s Community Voice Lab, a creative incubator for community storytellers and next generation filmmakers producing social impact films that elevate untapped stories and helping create a more empathetic, generous and just society. In 2025, Laura built an official partnership with PBS WETA to launch Season 1 of the Community Voice Lab documentary series on nationwide public television via streaming and on WETA Metro in the DMV region. The CVL series features both faculty and student films produced collaboratively alongside multiple DC-based nonprofit organizations.
Since 2009, Laura has directed nine independent films that have screened at the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art, with broadcasts on PBS, WORLD, ShortsTV and Curiosity Stream. Her films have been presented at numerous Oscar-qualifying film festivals such as the Big Sky Documentary Film Fest, Santa Barbara International Film Fest, AmDocs, Palm Springs ShortFest, Austin Film Fest, Pan African Film Fest, Heartland Film Fest, among others. Her latest short doc, THE TEST, won six major festival awards for Best Documentary was qualified for the Oscars in 2024. Learn more about her work at www.LauraWatersHinson.com
History
The Lab grew out of the “Community Voice Project,” an endeavor pioneered by former professor Nina Shapiro-Perl. Over the years, the project produced nearly 100 short films in collaboration with more than 30 community organizations. These stories brought voice and visibility to underserved communities while providing students and DC storytellers with a transformative, yet practical experience. View films made between 2012 – 2017 by the Community Voice Project
Archives
View our Community Voice Film Series online.