Kate Lawrie Van de Ven

Kate is a doctoral candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at York University. Her research explores Toronto’s many film festivals, their relationship to their urban communities and how different kinds of festival space impact understandings of Toronto as a particular kind of place: a festival city. Her broader interests include film festival cultures, media literacy, education and social justice; contemporary visual culture; and cinematic urbanism. She has published on spectacular representations of Paris and hotels and motels as cinematic purgatories as well as writing broadly for and about film festivals. She previously studied in the film departments at UCLA and Queen’s University. Please see more at Academia.edu .