Dr Sasha Litvintseva

Profile

My work across films and research is situated on the uncertain thresholds of the perceptible and the communicable, organism and environment, and knowledge regimes and power. It is interdisciplinary and engages film practice and film theory in conversation with media studies, environmental humanities, and the history and philosophy of science. 

I have recently completed the final piece in the trilogy of films ‘Monsters, Measures and Metabolisms’, which I have been making together with my collaborator Beny Wagner. The trilogy is comprised of A Demonstration (2020), which looked at the presence of monsters at the centre of Early Modern taxonomic science, and Constant (2022), which explores the social and political history of measurementstandardisation, and My Want of You Partakes of Me (2023), which interrogates digestion as a process of physiological, psychological, spiritual, literary and scientific dimensions. As part of this broader project we have co-authored the book All Thoughts Fly: Monster, Taxonomy, Film (Sonic Acts Press, 2021).

Prior to this I worked on a long-term research project proposing the theory and the practice of geological filmmaking as an aesthetic strategy for grappling with some of the key representational and perceptual challenges posed by the ecological crisis. This is explored in detail in my monograph Geological Filmmaking (Open Humanities Press, 2022). As part of this research I made two films, Salarium (2017) on sinkholes and Asbestos (2016) on asbestos.

My films have been screened worldwide including at film festivals such as the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Cinema Du Reel, RIDM Montreal; and major art institutions including the Tate Modern, the Baltic Triennial, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Museum of the Moving Image New York, TIVA Taipei, ICA London and Transmediale, among many others. The films have received numerous awards internationally, including at IndieLisboa, Guanajuato Film Festival, CPH:DOX,  EXiS Seoul, Second place at Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis (BAFTA equivalent) and Longlisted for an Oscar Academy Award. My work has been subject of focus and retrospective screenings at more than fifteen venues worldwide including Courtisane Festival, Union Docs NY, LA Filmforum and e-flux screening room, and has been featured in publications including Cahiers du Cinema, Sight & Sound, Frieze, Senses of Cinema, Filmmaker Magazine, among others.

Prior to starting at QMUL in 2019 I completed a PhD in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths.

I am the 2024 Winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize, and will be on extended research leave funded by the award starting in 2025. I am going to be working on a new book monograph and a feature film. 

Teaching

I have previously taught on: 

• FLM501 Documentary Theory and Practice
• FLM604 Film Archaeology
• FLM6211 Research Project by Film Practice
• FLM7202 Creative Documentary
• FLM5207 Research Methods
• FLM7210  Film Studies 1
• FLM7211  Film Studies 2
• FLM7200  Final Film Project

Research

Research Interests:

Publications

Filmography

Books

Articles and book chapters

Awards

Film Festivals (selection)

Exhibitions and screenings (selection)

Supervision

Current PhD supervision: