May 12, 2025
Laura serves as a strategic partner to SFTV, ensuring seamless collaboration between SFTV and MarComm. She leads our team of academic communications professionals while driving strategies and messaging to enhance SFTV’s and LMU’s academic reputation.
Over the past six years, Swanbeck has worked in communications at the American Film Institute where she showcased stories about fellows, alumni, and faculty of the AFI Conservatory and shaped the institute’s newsletters and website. During her time at AFI, she interviewed inspiring filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, Jane Campion, and Julie Dash, and worked on tribute books and digital sites in honor of AFI Life Achievement Award recipients Denzel Washington, Julie Andrews, Nicole Kidman, and Francis Ford Coppola. Swanbeck is always on the lookout for interesting story angles and, most recently, profiled cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who made history as the first woman to shoot a feature film on IMAX with “Sinners.” Swanbeck’s career has been driven by a deep commitment to amplifying emerging and independent artists, particularly women and filmmakers of color. She is a longtime member of Women in Film.
Swanbeck discovered her passion for writing and storytelling from a young age. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College, she moved to the Bay Area, where she launched her career in film programming at the California Film Institute’s Mill Valley Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival. She later earned her master’s degree in cinema and media studies from UCLA, while working for the Center for the Study of Women and serving as director of programming for Melnitz Movies, where she curated a weekly screening series. After graduating, she gained hands-on experience in television production as an assistant and researcher for several Showtime series before joining MGM, where she programmed classic films for the historic studio and oversaw licensing for over 3,500 titles in their catalog.
In her spare time, Swanbeck enjoys attending retrospectives at the American Cinematheque, visiting family in Massachusetts where she grew up, and volunteering as an assistant coach for a local youth soccer team.