Prof. Valentina Vitali

Professor in Digital Arts

Email:: valentina.vitali@bcu.ac.uk

Prof. Valentina Vitali is a film historian and theorist. Her research explores the interconnections between aesthetics, history and economics from a comparative perspective. She has published extensively on cinema in South and East Asia, on women’s cinema, and on aspects on Indian visual culture. Valentina teaches film history and critical theory at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and supervises PhD dissertations.

Areas of Expertise

Qualifications

Memberships

Teaching

Research

Postgraduate Supervision

Publications

Books

2016: Capital and Popular Cinema: the Dollars Are Coming! Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press.
2008: Hindi Action Cinema: Industries, Narratives, Bodies. Delhi and Bloomington: Oxford Univ. Press and Indiana Univ. Press.
2006: Theorising National Cinemas. London: British Film Institute, co-edited with Paul Willemen.

Book chapters

2024: ‘Video Online Distribution and Regional Exchange in South Asia, in Hadi Gharabaghi and Shakti Jaising (eds) Cinema and Cinematic Television in the Age of Netflix: A Study of the Global South. (Forthcoming).
2023: ‘Of Myths and Historiography: Foreword’, in Felicia Chan, Fraser Elliott and Andy Willis (eds) Women in East Asian Cinema: Gender Representation, Creative Labour, and Global Histories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (forthcoming).
2022: ‘The Hindi Horror Film’, in Samirah Alkassim and Ziad Foty (eds) Global Horror Film. San Diego: Cognella Press, pp. 204-17.
2021: ‘”But are they all horrid?” On the Use of the Gothic in Hindi cinema’, in Katarzyna Ancuta and Deimantas Valanciunas (eds) South Asian Gothic. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, pp. 223-42.
2017: ‘Variables of Transnational Authorship: Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Wei Te-Sheng’, in Kuei-fen Chiu and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley (eds) Taiwan Cinema: International Reception and Social Change. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 25-38.
2016: ‘Antonioni’s Chung Kuo-Cina: a Moment of Explicitation’, in Felicia Chan (ed.) Chinese Cinemas: International Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 143-58.
2015: ‘Dara Singh and the Hindi Small-budget Film’, in Rachel Dwyer (ed.) Bollywood: Volume 3: Form/Genres and Other Features of Hindi Cinema. London and New York: Routledge.
2013: ‘Migration and National Cinema’, in Immanuel Ness (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, Vol. 3. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1454-59.
2011: ‘The Hindi Horror Film: Notes on the Realism of a Marginal Genre’, in Felicia Chan, Angelina Karpovich and Xin Zhang (eds) Genre in Asian Film and Television. London: MacMillan, pp. 130-48.
‘The Evil I: Realism and Scopophilia in the Horror Films of the Ramsay Brothers’, in Rachel Dwyer and Jerry Pinto (eds) Beyond the Boundaries of Bollywood. Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press, pp. 77-101.
2009: ‘History Matters’, in Manju Jain (ed.) Narratives of Indian Cinema. Delhi: Primus Books, pp. 53-68.
2007: ‘Cultural Specificity and Universalism in the Work of Shirin Neshat’ / ‘Kulttuurinen erityisyys ja universaalisuus Shirin Neshat taiteessa’, in Païvi Talasmaa (ed.) Slöjans helighet / The Secret of the Veil. Espoo: Espoo Museum of Modern Art, pp. 16-43.
2007: ‘Where Are Those Who Claim to Be Proud of Their Land? Pyaasa’, in Chris Fujiwara (ed.) Movies: the Little Black Book. London: Cassell, p. 275.
2006: ‘Not a Biography of the “Indian Cinema”: Historiography and the Question of National Cinema in India’, in Valentina Vitali and Paul Willemen (eds) Theorising National Cinemas. London: British Film Institute, pp. 262-73.
2005: ‘The Cyborg's Hand: Care or Control?’, in Trinh T. Minh-ha The Digital Film Event. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 27-42.
2005: ‘Reading “Mahdokht” / “Mahdokht” Verstehen’, in Britta Schmitz and Beatrice E. Stammer (eds) Shirin Neshat. Berlin and Göttingen: Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof and Stiedl, pp. 21-32 and pp. 107-12.
2005: ‘Hong Kong – Hollywood – Bombay: on the Function of Martial Art in the Hindi Action Cinema’, in Meaghan Morris, Siu Leung Li and Stephen Chan Ching-kiu (eds) Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema. Durham and Hong Kong: Duke Univ. Press and Hong Kong Univ. Press, pp. 125-50.

Essays in peer-reviewed journals

2021: ‘B & C Circuit’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 11(2), pp. 31-34.
2020: ‘Contemporary Women Filmmakers in Myanmar’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 11(1), pp. 78-91.
2020: ‘Why a Special Issue on Women’s Cinema?’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 11(1), pp. 7-14.
2019: ‘The Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service: Picturing India’s New Woman’, Women’s History Review, 29(7), pp. 1114-48.
2018: ‘Meanings of Failed Action: a Reassessment of the 1946 Royal Indian Navy Uprising’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 41(4), pp. 763-88.
2013: ‘Introduction to the Dossier: Paul Willemen (1944-2012)’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 14(1), pp. 85-93, co-authored with Ashish Rajadhyaksha.
2011: ‘Film Historiography as Theory of the Film Subject: a Case Study’, Cinema Journal, 50(1), pp. 141-46.
2010: ‘Revisiting the Realism of the Cosmetics of Hunger: Cidade de deus and Ônibus 174’, New Cinemas, 8(1), pp. 15-30, co-authored with Felicia Chan.
2008: ‘Hou Hsiao-hsien Reviewed’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 9(2) Special Issue on Hou Hsiao-hsien, pp. 280-89.
2006: ‘On the Frontal Subjects of the Hindi Melodrama: Notes for a Comparative Approach to Film’, boundary2, 33(2), pp. 159-76.
2005: ‘Why Study Cinema? Serial Visions of the Culture Industry and the Future of Film Studies’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 6(2), pp. 282-88.
2004: ‘Nationalist Hindi Cinema: Questions of Film Analysis and Historiography’, Kinema, 22, pp. 63-82.
2004: ‘Corporate Art and Critical Theory: on Shirin Neshat’, Women: A Cultural Review, 15(1), pp. 1-18.
2004: ‘India’s Newspaper Revolution’, Journal of Asian Studies, 63(2), pp. 537-38.
2004: ‘A Cinema of Interruptions’, Journal of Asian Studies, 63(2), pp.530-31.
2003: ‘Between “Art” and “Cinema”: Shirin Neshat’s Photography and Videos’, n.paradoxa: International Feminist Art Journal, 12, pp. 33-43.
2002: ‘The Politics of Film Historiography’, Southern Review: Communication, Politics and Culture, 35(2), pp. 131-35.
2002: ‘Yesim Ustaoglu’, Framework: the Journal of Cinema and Media, special issue on Middle Eastern cinema, 43(2), pp. 196-200.
2000: ‘The Aesthetics of Cultural Modernization: Hindi Cinema in the 1940s’, South Asian Review, 21, pp. 88-90.
2000: ‘The Families of Hindi Cinema: for a Historical Approach to Film’, Framework: the Journal of Cinema and Media, 42.

Guest editorships

2020: Guest editor of special issue 11(1) of BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, on contemporary women film directors in South Asia, June 2020.

Exhibition catalogues

2017: Meanings of Failed Action: Insurrection 1946. Catalogue of exhibition at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, 17-25 March 2017, co-authored with Ashish Rajadhyaksha. https://insurrection1946.wordpress.com/

Interviews in peer-reviewed journals

2020: ‘Dechen Roder’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 11(1), pp. 96-100.
2020: ‘Lanka Bandaranayake’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 11(1), pp. 101-04.
2020: ‘Rubaiyat Hossain’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 11(1), pp. 92-95.

Magazine publications

2023: ‘South Asian Films between Festivals and Streaming: Focus on Women Filmmakers’, NO NIIM: At the Cusp Art, Criticality and Love, 16 (April).
2003: ‘Tabloid Visions and the Aestheticisation of Politics: the Times-BFI London Film Festival 2003’, Filmwaves, 23, pp. 19-21.
2003: ‘Locarno Film Festival 2003’, Filmwaves, 23, pp. 14-17.
2003: ‘War at a Distance: Harun Farocki’s Erkennen und Verfolgen’, Filmwaves, 22.
2003: ‘Cinema and Human Rights: Locarno Film Festival 2003’, Filmwaves, 22.
2003: ‘Interview with Trinh Minh-ha’, Filmwaves, 21, pp. 34-9.
2003: ‘Still Looking for “Kathryn Bigelow”’, Filmwaves, 21, pp. 24-6.
2002: ‘Cultural Tourism: Locarno Film Festival 2002’, Filmwaves, 19, pp. 10-13.
2001: ‘In Conversation with Wayne Wang’, Filmwaves, 16, p. 22-5.

Events organised since 2000

2023: Irregular Commas #2-5, quarterly public encounters of creative practice and cultural theory, Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts, London, ongoing. https://bowarts.org/event/irregular-commas-reading-group/
2022: Responses to Visions, public UEL student screening, Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts,
15 December. https://bowarts.org/event/film-screening-responses-to-visions-uel-student-screening/
2022: Public screening and Q&A of The Visitor (Sharone Lifschitz) and Art as Problematic Waste (David Chapman and Aimo Hyvärinen), Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts, London, 24 November.
https://bowarts.org/event/film-screening-the-visitor-by-sharone-lifschitz-and-art-as-problematic-waste-by-david-chapman-and-aimo-hyvarinen/
2022: #FirstThursdays Late Opening: Irregular Commas, public reading group on art practice and theory, Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts, 3 November.
https://bowarts.org/event/firstthursdays-late-opening-irregular-commas-reading-group-with-uel-centre-of-creative-and-cultural-practice/
2022: Grabbing the World by the Lapels. Curated screening of shorts films by women filmmakers from across South Asia. Part of AHRC-funded project on VOT/OTT/streaming in South Asia. Stratford Picturehouse, in collaboration with Tongues on Fire: UK Asian Film Festival, London, 14-15 May.
2021: The WRINS, Western Approaches Museum, Liverpool. Curated permanent display on Indian WRENs for new museum section.
2021: ‘Our Visions: Young Filmmakers Respond to Visions in the Nunnery 2020’. In partnership with Nunnery Gallery and Bow Arts, London, 25 March.
2019: Contemporary Women Filmmakers in South Asia. Film festival, FACT, Liverpool, 9-10 December, in collaboration with Liverpool Hope University, part of AHRC-funded project and symposium Articulating Women. https://www.fact.co.uk/event/film-festival-contemporary-south-asian-films-by-women https://empowering-women.net/9-december-at-the-box-fact-liverpool/
2019: Retracing Kampala. First laboratory event in the series ‘Work-in-Progress’, Moving Image Research Centre, University Square Stratford, London, 15 May, in collaboration with the journal darkmatter: in the ruins of imperial culture. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/retracing-kampala-a-film-project-by-said-adrus-tickets-60927902998?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete
2019: South Asian Women’s Cinema Now. Workshop at Film Development Centre, Yangon, 22 February, in collaboration with Yangon Film School and Myanmar Motion Picture Development Department. https://www.facebook.com/events/1141246049368689/ https://www.facebook.com/yangonfilmschool/posts/_masterclass-on-womens-cinema-in-south-asiadr-valentina-vitali-was-examining-tod/2147045438663930/
2018: Meanings of Failed Action: Insurrection 1946. Multimedia art exhibition, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, 8 Feb.-15 July 2018, co-curated with Vivan Sundaram, Ashish Rajadhyaksha and David Chapman. Part of Vivan Sundaram: A Retrospective: https://www.knma.in/vivan-sundaram-retrospective-fifty-years-step-inside-and-you-are-no-longer-stranger
2017: Meanings of Failed Action: Insurrection 1946. Multimedia art exhibition, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Coomaraswamy Hall, Mumbai, 17-25 March 2017, co-curated with Vivan Sundaram, Ashish Rajadhyaksha and David Chapman. https://insurrection1946.wordpress.com/
2017: Nation, Gender and History: Asian Cinemas in Perspective. International conference, Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University, Vilnius, 7-9 September. https://nagehi2017.wordpress.com/
2017: Rouch 100. Curated screening of artist films to mark the 100th anniversary of Jean Rouch’s birth, Close-Up Cinema, London, 31 May. https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2017/rouch-100/
2017: Alia Syed: Recent Works. Curated retrospective, Whitechapel
Gallery, London, 27 April. https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/alia-syed-recent-works/
2017: The Writerly. Curated screening of films by contemporary British and Irish artist filmmakers, Close-Up Cinema, London, 6 February. https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2017/the-writerly/
2016: Future Shots. Curated programme of short films by young filmmakers and film students, East End Film Festival, London (28 June).
2016: CineCri ’16: 3rd International and Film Studies and Cinematic Arts Conference. Dakam: Eastern Mediterranean Academic Research Centre, Istanbul, 10-13 June. https://www.dakamconferences.org/cinecri
2015: The Bridge. Collaboration between University of East London film students and two filmmaker refugees, refugee camp Calais. The resulting film was screened at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
2014: Parallax Views of Moving Image Practice 2. Symposium: conversations in moving image theory and practice, Moving Image Research Centre, University of East London, 30 May. https://www.uel.ac.uk/our-research/research-school-arts-creative-industries/moving-image-research-centre-mirc/events-moving-image-research-centre
2013: Parallax Views of Moving Image Practice 1. Symposium: conversations in moving image theory and practice, Moving Image Research Centre, University of East London, 31 May.
2011: The Body in the Cinemas of South Asia. International conference, Centre of Oriental Studies, Vilnius University, July. https://bodyinsouthasiancinema.wordpress.com/
2005: World Cinema Today 2. Film retrospective, Flowerfield Art Centre, Portstewart, Northern Ireland, October-December.
2004: World Cinema Today 1. Film retrospective, Flowerfield Art Centre, Portstewart, Northern Ireland, October-December.
2004: Hindi Literature in Cinema. International panel, conference on Cinema and Literature at Delhi University, March.
2003: Hindi Cinema: 1950s-1990s. Screening series, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, March-May.
2000: Perspectives on Indian Cinemas. Curated film retrospective, Edinburgh Film Festival, Lumière Theatre, August.

Keynotes, masterclasses and select invited talks since 2012

2023: Conference panel convenor: ‘Regional Streaming Networks: Video Online Distribution and Transnational Exchange in South Asia and beyond’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Biennial Conference, Ahmedabad, 27-29 July.
2022: Masterclass: ‘Contemporary South Asian Women’s Cinema: For a Comparative Approach’, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge, 23 February.
2021: Keynote address: ‘South Asian Films at European Festivals: 1950s to date’, South Asian Cinema at International Film Festivals: Global Intersections and Interventions, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, 7 December.
2021: Keynote address: ‘The Real Place of Another’ at Dreaming of Another Place, MeCCSA PGN Conference, University of Brighton, 10 September.
2021: Invited public lecture: ‘Women Filmmakers in Afghanistan, Myanmar and Bhutan: Contemporary Networks and Politics’, UCLA, Centre for India and South Asia, Public Colloquium Series, Los Angeles, 12 April. https://www.international.ucla.edu/cisa/event/14952 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwdfN1VyXn-FUOFl6g_hePw (video recording)
2020: Invited talk: ‘Streaming Platforms and Emerging Filmmakers: Case Studies in South Asia’, National Union of Students (NUS), London, 26 November.
2019: Invited talk: ‘Intersectionality in Contemporary South Asian Women’s Cinema’, Interrogating Intersectionality in a Global Perspective, International Symposium, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, 21 June.
2019: Invited public talk: ‘Malayalam Women Filmmakers in Comparative Perspective’, Tongues on Fire Festival UK, Queen Mary University, London, 5 April.
2019: Masterclass: ‘Women’s Cinema in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan: Distribution and Exhibition Strategies’, Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, 29 March.
2019: Keynote address: ‘Comparative Film Historiography: Can We Speak of South Asian Cinema?’, Media and Communication Department, Independent University of Bangladesh, Dhaka, 7 March.
2019: Masterclass: ‘Women Film Directors in South Asia: Funding and Distribution’, Film Development Centre, Myanmar Motion Picture Development Department and Yangon Film School, Yangon, 22 February.
2018: Keynote address: ‘The Weight of Myth in Mani Kaul’s Documentary Films’, Contextualising the Cinema of Mani Kaul, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London, 23-24 March.
2017: Invited talk: ‘Transcultural Imagination and the Figure of the Cyborg’, Trinh T. Minh-ha: Symposium, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, 3 December.
2017: Keynote address: ‘International Dimensions of Italian Cinema’, XVII Settimana della Lingua nel Mondo: l’Italiano al Cinema, l’Italiano nel Cinema, Italian Embassy in Turkey and Bilkent University, Ankara, 18 October.
2017: Invited talk: ‘The Visibility of Taiwanese Cinema in Europe’, Taiwan Cinema: International Reception and Social Change, SOAS, London, 25 September.
2017: Invited talk: ‘Hindu Chauvinism and the Inscription of Gender in the Documentaries of Anand Patwardhan’, Nation, Gender and History: Asian Cinemas in Perspective, Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University, 7-9 September.
2016: Invited public lecture: ‘Cross-disciplinary Icon: Silent Action Woman Fearless Nadia and Modernist Indian Artist Pushpamala N.’, Wexford Institute of Technology, Ireland, 11 November.
2016: Workshops at refugees camp ‘The Jungle’: ‘Bollywood Action Flicks’, Calais, March.
2016: Masterclass: ‘Comparative Film Studies: the Instability of Popular Genres in Film Historiography’, University of Manchester, February.
2015: Invited public lecture: ‘Indian Modernisms: Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti’, King’s College, London, September.
2015: Keynote address: ‘Glorious Gohar, Unhistoricised Pioneer of Indian Cinema, and the Limits of Film History’, CineCri15, Istanbul, June.
2015: ‘Michelangelo Antonioni’s Chung Kuo - Cina (1972)’, Moving Image Research Centre, University of East London, January.
2014: Invited talk: ‘On the Historicity of 1970s Turkish Thriller Films’, 7th International Conference on Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa, Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco, April.
2012: Keynote address: ‘In Absentia: Marketing the Asian Film Auteur’, The Distribution and Exhibition of Chinese and Asian Cinema in the UK: a Chinese Film Forum UK Symposium, Cornerhouse, Manchester, March.
2012: Invited talk: ‘The Hindi Horror Film as National Cinema’, Centre for Performance Practices, Royal Holloway, University of London, February.