I completed my PhD in Media Communications and Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths University of London. Before joining the University of Birmingham, I was a Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. From 2023 to 2024, I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the AHRC-funded project Independent Cinema in China: State, Market and Film Culture (2019–2024) at Newcastle University.
My research lies at the intersections of film and media industries, cultural studies, and digital anthropology. My monograph, Contemporary Art Cinema Culture in China (Bloomsbury, 2024), is the first book-length study of the distribution and reception of art cinema in twenty-first-century China and was nominated for the 2025 Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, my book explores the cultural practices of intermediaries such as independent programmers, internet critics, and fan translators, revealing alternative modes of film distribution and reception. This ‘new’ cinema culture negotiates complex relationships with both state authority and market forces in China and underpins my broader research interests in film festivals, grassroots film cultures, and screen practices in the digital age.
Beyond teaching and research, I am actively involved in film curation and criticism, with a particular focus on decolonising archives, memory, and feminist filmmaking in the Global South. My most recent curatorial project at the Institute of Contemporary Arts can be found here: Ana Vaz: Sounds of the Past, Lights of the Future.