Careers after Cinema Studies 2024

Careers after Cinema Studies is our annual Cinema Studies Institute alumni panel in which professionals in the film industry and beyond share their experience and knowledge with students. This year's panel will feature Alaine Hutton, Dylan Rykse and Theresa Wang. Link to livestream.

Alaine Hutton is part of a performing/writing/directing/designing duo with a decade of shared training in physical performance and making people uncomfortable. They create questionably comedic theatre, film, and “digital not otherwise specified”, often revolving around the internet ruining our brains, distorting our sexualities, and how we can’t stop looking at it. You can watch their speculative fiction/ cringe comedy series Content Farm streaming on CBC Gem. Alaine graduated with a Minor in Cinema Studies in 2011. 

Dylan Rykse is the Senior Media Specialist at Media Commons. In this role, he manages the film collections and screening rooms at Robarts Library. Prior to his current position, he was the Reference Specialist at the University of Toronto Music Library and a librarian at the Toronto Public Library. He graduated with a Major in Cinema Studies in 2016.

Theresa Wang is a curator and writer based in Toronto where she is currently Director & Curator at Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art. Her practice considers ways in which narratives are destabilized and reconfigured, and is particularly interested in questions pertaining to concepts of truth, knowledge, meaning, and memory. She was recently Associate Curator & Registrar at Oakville Galleries, where she organized exhibitions with Diedrick Brackens, Timothy Yanick Hunter, Julia Brown, and Elif Saydam, and the group exhibition Two Truths and a Lie (2022). She has held curatorial and audience development positions at institutions including the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Gardiner Museum, and Musée d’art contemporain, Lyon. Her writing on contemporary art and cinema has been featured in publications and galleries, such as C Magazine, ArtAsiaPacific, BlackFlash, MUBI Notebook, Screen Slate, Franz Kaka, and Trinity Square Video. As an independent curator, she organized the projects Written in Water at Hearth Garage (2021), Everything Worthwhile at Vector Festival (2021), and co-curated Soft Refractions at Xpace Cultural Centre (2019). She is an alumna of the 2021 Professional Alliance for Curators of Color (Association of Art Museum Curators, New York) and the recipient of a 2022 Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries Exhibition Award. Theresa graduated with a Minor in Cinema Studies in 2018. 

You can read edited and condensed transcripts from previous alumni panels in the following articles:

• Alumni return to share Careers after Cinema Studies
• CSI Alumni Zalika Reid-Benta, Chandler Levack, Phil Leers return for panel discussion
• CSI Alumni Diana Sanchez, Karam Masri and JP Larocque return for panel discussion
• CSI Alumni reveal how they got from here to there

An edited recording of the 2023 Careers after Cinema Studies event is available on YouTube.