Kelly Swift

Hometown: Lafayette, Louisiana

Age: 26

Artistry: Film Programming Manager, Manship Theatre

Online: manshiptheatre.org, @manshiptheatre on Instagram

While hopeful practitioners have always attempted to manifest desired outcomes, for Kelly Swift, the doors to her career’s creative path first swung wide open when she started voicing her passion to others.

“It’s so important to tell everyone your dreams,” says Swift, now the manager of film programming at Manship Theatre. “That way, people really know you and know what you want to do. I was having so many conversations like that, and then I was offered my dream job.”

Swift was bartending at Manship three years ago and feeling “directionless” until her movie talk led to an internship offer. “It gave me a sense of purpose and an outlet for creativity that I knew I was missing,” Swift says.

Last summer, Jason Langlois, Manship Theatre’s executive director, made her the head film of programming. Overseeing Manship’s film slate—a mix of revisited classics, revelatory documentaries, and new indie hits—Swift is motivated to create memorable experiences.

“It’s a lot of exploring what people are willing to come downtown and pay their hard-earned money to see, doing crowd work, and a little intuition, too,” she says.

In February, Swift booked a DJ for a lively set of atmospheric jams prior to showing sci-fi epic Blade Runner, and she wants to bring more themed food offerings as movie tie-ins. A former writer for LSU’s The Reveille, she loves conducting Q&As on stage with filmmakers.

As streaming seems dominant, watching a movie out of the house can almost feel counter-cultural. A little rebellious. Swift muses on the communal power movies still have to bring people together, and she wants to wield that power with intention and creativity.

“What intrigues me most is that the crowd is always going to be so diverse, and that’s a great thing,” Swift says.

Inspired by the surreal storytelling of Michel Gondry—especially his Oscar-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—Swift has written the script for her own sci-fi romance film, and she plans to delve further into creative writing in 2025.