Thesis title:
Decoloniality, Memory, Futurity: Reconceptualising the Archive in Contemporary Global Cinemas
My PhD research is concerned with how contemporary filmmakers from the postcolony or in the diaspora have experimentally repurposed or fabulated archival footage to articulate a decolonial and anarchival counter-visuality. Filling the gaps in recorded history with their own radical narratives and histories, what has come to be known as the ‘Archive’ becomes a fluid conceptual space for the realisation of liberatory decolonial futures.
Building on decolonial and cultural theory, and using cinematic case studies which range from the UK to the Philippines and Latin America, my research ultimately aims to provide a theory of decolonial archival engagement that highlights cinema’s potential to reorient our understanding of colonial history and promote social and racial justice.
Research Area
- Film History, Theory and Criticism
- Media
Publications
- 'Gaza on Screen: NADIA YAQUB (ed), 2023, Durham, Duke University Press, pp. xvi+ 277, illus., $27.95 (paperback)', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 45 No. 2 (2025), 457–459. (Book Review).
- Towards a Film Theory from Below: Archival Film and the Aesthetics of the Crack-Up: JIŘÍ ANGER, 2024, London, Bloomsbury, pp. 232, illus., £95.00 (hardback), £28.99 (paper). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 1–3. (Book Review).
Conferences
- 'Kanya-kanyang Kasaysayang: Re-enactment as Anarchival Historiography in Raya Martin's A Short Film About the Indio Nacional (2005)', Ranging the Gaps: Approaching National Cinematic Histories Through Incomplete Archives PGR Symposium, University of Manchester (13th April 2026, forthcoming)
- ''Film is dead, please omit flowers': Anarchival Aesthetics and Epistemic Refusal in Khavn De La Cruz's Makamisa: Phantasm of Revenge (2024),' Film and Television Studies Research Day 2025, University of Warwick (14th May 2025)
- 'The Rural Counter-Archive and the Forest in the Cinema of Lav Diaz', BAFTSS Conference 2025, University of Warwick (26th-28th March 2025)
- 'Speculated Histories/Liberated Futures: Labouring Towards a Philippine Autohistory in the Cinema of Raya Martin', BAFTSS Conference 2024, University of Sussex (3rd-5th April 2024)
Other Research Interests
- World/global cinemas
- Decolonial theory
- Ethnicity/race/indigenous studies
- Critical and cultural theory
- Film philosophy
- Cinematic realism
- Philippine cinema
- Archival/anarchival film
- Global diaspora cinemas
- Latin American cinemas
- Third Cinema/revolutionary cinemas
Memberships
British Association of Film, Television & Screen Studies (BAFTSS)
Peer Review
I have previously acted as peer reviewer for Iluminace: The Journal of Film Theory, History, and Aesthetics. Please contact me for enquiries relating to peer review.
