Marsha Kinder founded film and media studies at Occidental, and her work influenced generations of alumni filmmakers and scholars
Editor's note: Dr. Marsha Kinder, who founded film and media studies as a member of the Occidental faculty from 1965 to 1980, died November 26, 2025, in Los Angeles. She was 85. A native of Los Angeles, Marsha received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at UCLA. Survivors include her husband, Nicolás Bautista; their children; and her extended family. A memorial service was held at Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills on December 2. The following tribute was prepared by the faculty of the Media Arts & Culture Department.
The Media Arts & Culture (MAC) Department and the broader Occidental College community mark the passing of Dr. Marsha Kinder, who founded film and media studies at Occidental, and served as a colleague and mentor of multiple MAC faculty.
Marsha was a pioneering, interdisciplinary figure in the field of film and media studies—a prolific theorist-practitioner who advanced new areas of scholarship while simultaneously developing new forms of interactive media practice. Her scholarship ranged from foundational texts on Spanish cinema, children's media, transmedia, and psychoanalytic film theory to groundbreaking interactive documentaries exploring memory, migration, and cultural heritage. Through the Labyrinth Project at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, she produced works such as The Danube Exodus, an immersive experience that included interactive DVD-ROMs, games, and site-specific installations at institutions including L.A.’s Getty Museum and Skirball Cultural Center, each blending documentary, archive, and digital art into new narrative forms that challenge how we engage storytelling and cultural memory.
Two years after joining the Occidental faculty in 1965 as a specialist in 18th-century English literature, Marsha launched film and media studies ventures at the College, marking one of the first undergraduate experiments in integrating critical film theory and production practices. In 1970, she brought experimental filmmaker Mildred “Chick” Strand on board to lead production courses, and Strand went on to run Oxy's filmmaking program for 25 years. Together, they established foundational commitments to interdisciplinarity, criticality, creative experimentation, local/global perspectives, and social justice that continue to animate the MAC Department today.
Throughout her career, Marsha mentored generations of leading media scholars and practitioners. After moving to USC in 1980, she remained actively engaged with MAC. In 2006, she brought the Labyrinth Project's interactive documentary installations to campus as part of MAC’s Digital Dialogues Series. At a 2009 memorial screening of Strand's Soft Fiction (1979) on campus, Marsha shared anecdotes about Strand's time at Occidental and reflected on the film's blending of truth and fiction. Her last formal appearance at Oxy was at a 2019 MAC Cinematheque panel on emerging media. Last spring, director Jesús Salvador Treviño '68 honored Marsha at a MAC Cinematheque event, recounting how her Global Cinema courses and Strand's filmmaking courses shaped his work as a founding member of the Chicano Film Movement.
In 2016, when MAC became a standalone department, it established the Kinder Prize for Innovation and Excellence in Critical Media to honor outstanding critical media work by a student that embodies the originality and excellence that Marsha modeled throughout her career. Through this prize and her continued influence, Marsha endures in the department as an aspirational figure and guidestar for current and future generations of students carrying forward her legacy of rigorous inquiry, bold experimentation, and generous collaboration.
Vale, Dr. Kinder!
