Mindy Van Kuren(I)

Mindy Christine Van Kuren was born in Tacoma, Washington. Her parents, James Van Kuren of Hawaii and Barbara Van Kuren (Melton) of Kentucky met serving in the United States Air Force. As a result, Mindy traveled the globe throughout her childhood being active in sports, school and church choirs and community theatre with her sister, author Katie Jenkins. She began her career modeling and commercial acting between her schooling at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Mindy's love of performing and the arts culminated when she was cast in her first lead role in a short film about domestic violence in the fall of 2013 called Paradigm by Jess Carson (Only Human, CW The Flash). Since then she has gained experience on sets of studio films and network tv shows and by working as Executive Producer, Producer, Associate Producer, Assistant to Producers, Production Coordinator, Production Designer, Production Manager, Assistant Director, Key Craft Services, Locations Scout and Production Assistant on independent film and tv projects.

At the moment, she has 2 independent Queer films, a comedy/sci-fi feature and a psychological thriller feature film in development in Mississippi with award winning Queer writer/director/cinematographer, Michael Williams, is in pre-production on Arkansas native writer/director/editor, John-Michael Powell's next Indie feature shooting in Northwest Arkansas and is developing a Queer documentary short with award winning documentary director, Paige Murphy (Just Benjamin), a 6 part docuseries about the convergence of neuroscience, design and well-being with Emmy award winning director, Mario Troncoso and a short form documentary film project in association with 24 Hour Plays Little Rock.

She worked as Conference Center Coordinator and handled Operations for the Oxford Film Festival intermittently since 2016. Mindy is also the former Director of Development and Interim Executive Director for the nonprofit Film Society of Little Rock (FSLR) and Kaleidoscope LGBQT Film Festival, former Operations Director for the world renowned Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (HSDFF), and was the Assistant Festival Director of the Fantastic Cinema Film Festival. She also served as a juror for the 24 FPS Film Festival in Abilene, Texas, Fort Smith International Film Festival and Arkansas Cinema Society's premiere festival, Filmland: Arkansas.

Mindy also has experience participating in and producing radio, tv, print and digital media, and live events and promotional campaigns for KARK 4, KATV 7, KTHV 11, FOX16, Arkansas Times, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, CARTI, American Red Cross, Westwind School for Performing Arts, Arkansas Parks and Tourism, The Buzz, 107.7, B98.5, KSSN, Arkansas Twisters, South on Main, Harvest Festival, and Arkansas PBS.

When she is not working on the set of a project or coordinating festival events and logistics, or developing projects, Mindy enjoys collaborating, traveling and spending time with the love of her life, actor and United States Air Force pilot, Zack Ratkovich and their "A-Team", her talented and beautiful daughters, Avelyn and Andersyn.