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Dr Dorota Ostrowska

Positions held:
  • Senior Lecturer, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    I research cultures, spaces and practices that shape our experience of cinema — from the critical debates of post-war Paris that defined arthouse film, to the festival circuits of contemporary Europe, the screen cultures of Central and Eastern Europe under socialism and in the post-socialist period, and the documentary filmmakers working under conditions of war and crisis in Ukraine today. Alongside this, I champion writing-rich pedagogical practice and explore the critical and ethical dimensions of AI in education.

    I am the author of Reading the French New Wave: Critics, Writers and Art Cinema in France (Columbia University Press/Wallflower Press, 2008), co-editor of European Cinemas in the Television Age (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), Popular Cinemas in Central and Eastern Europe: Film Cultures and Histories (Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris, 2017) and Shaping Film Festivals in a Changing World: Practice and Methods (Taylor & Francis/Amsterdam University Press, 2025, open access). My new monograph, The European Film Festival: Carnival, Audiences and Spaces (Bloomsbury Academic, July 2026), develops the concept of festive chronotopes to analyse the spatial, affective and curatorial dimensions of European film festival cultures, drawing on Bakhtin, Giuliana Bruno, Kristeva and Winnicott.

    Through a competitive two-year CLASP Fellowship at the Institute for Writing and Thinking, Bard College (OSUN, 2023–2025), I developed writing-rich pedagogical practice which I have shared internationally and applied to AI in education. Following a competitive internal selection process, I completed the Advance HE AURORA Women in Leadership programme (2020) and served as Assistant Dean for Business Engagement and Partnerships, School of Arts (2021–2023). I have delivered four international keynote addresses: at the 4th Film Festival Symposium, Anadolu University, Turkey (2025); the Conference Films, Festivals et Mondes Contemporains, Université de Montpellier (2020); the AFECCAV Conference, Strasbourg (2018); and the AIM Conference, Aveiro, Portugal (2018). I review grant applications for the Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Science Centre, Poland). I hold Senior Fellowship of Advance HE (SFHEA, 2023).

    I am Programme Director of the MA Film and Screen Media and Director of the MA Film and Screen Media Study Abroad Pathway. I am a Trustee of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and a board member of the European Women's Audiovisual Network (EWA).

    Before joining Birkbeck, I was Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh (2004–2008), where I was artistic co-director of Cinema China — the UK Festival of Chinese Cinema — with Mark Cousins, and Research Fellow in European Cinema at the University of Leeds (2003–2004).

    Highlights

    • The European Film Festival: Carnival, Audiences and Spaces (Bloomsbury Academic, July 2026) — a monograph developing festive chronotopes across European film festival cultures from Cannes and Berlinale to human rights and documentary festivals in Central and Eastern Europe.

    • Shaping Film Festivals in a Changing World: Practice and Methods (Taylor & Francis/Amsterdam University Press, 2025, open access) — co-edited volume with Professor Tamara Falicov (University of Kansas), bringing together academics and film festival professionals from Europe, North America and the Global South.

    • From Communities into Audiences: Changing Lives through Film (2023–2024) — experiential learning module for MA Film and Screen Media students, supported by a grant from the Experiential Learning Institute (ELI), OSUN (Open Society University Network), in which students developed and pitched their own programmes of screenings and events to London venues including Bertha DocHouse, Close-Up and Mayday Rooms.

    • AI: Your Most Disruptive Student and AI: Your Reading Coach — two workshops co-facilitated for the Global Higher Education Alliance for the 21st Century (GHEA21) network in collaboration with the Institute for Writing and Thinking, Bard College (November 2025 and March 2026).

    • Peace Letters to Silenced Landscapes (Birkbeck Climate Festival, March 2026) — public event co-organised with BIMI and the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, in which audiences wrote in response to a documentary about wartime ecocide in Ukraine, led by Belarusian poet in exile Hanna Komar.

    • CLASP Fellowship, Institute for Writing and Thinking, Bard College (2023–2025) — competitive two-year professional fellowship in writing-rich pedagogy, culminating in "Dancing with Words: From My CLASP Notebooks," in press at the IWT CLASP Journal.

    Office hours

    by appointment

    Web profiles

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Programme Director, MA Film and Screen Media (2023–present; 2017–2020)
    • Programme Director, MA Film and Screen Media Film Programming and Curating Pathway (2018–present)Director, MA Film and Screen Media Film Programming and Curating Pathway (2018–present)
    • Programme Director, MA Film and Screen Media Study Abroad Pathway (2012–present)
    • Admissions Tutor, MA Film and Screen Media and MA Film and Screen Media Study Abroad Pathway (2012–present)
    • Chair, PGR Sub-Board for Film, Media and Journalism, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication (2026–present)
    • Co-Director of Research, Film, Media and Cultural Studies (2013–2021)
    • CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership Liaison, Film, Media and Cultural Studies (2013–2021)
    • Assistant Dean for Business Engagement and Partnerships, School of Arts (2021–2023)
    • External Examiner, MA programmes: University of Glasgow (2008–2013), King's College London (2013–2014, 2021–2022), University of Westminster (2017–2021), University of Reading (2021–2024) Done. Now — page count on the application form. Please.

    Visiting posts

    Professional memberships

    • PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:

      Current

      Member, BAFTSS — British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (2012–present)

      Member, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), USA (2008–present)

      Member, European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) (2006–present)

      Member, University of London Screen Studies Group (2008–present)

      Past

      Co-Chair, SCMS Film Festivals Scholarly Interest Group (2014–2015)

      Chair, University of London Screen Studies Group (2011–2014)

      Head of Publications Committee, NECS (2007–2011)

      Steering Committee Member, NECS (2007–2011)

       

    Honours and awards

    • CLASP Fellow Institute for Writing and Thinking, Bard College, OSUN (2023–2025), April 2025
    • Senior Fellow Advance HE (SFHEA), April 2023

    ORCID

    0000-0003-2516-1604

  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • Film festival cultures and histories
    • Central and Eastern European screen cultures
    • Ukrainian documentary film, memory, care and archives
    • French cinema, literary criticism and intermediality
    • Writing as research practice and critical pedagogy
    • AI in pedagogy and creative practice

    Research overview

    Film Festival Cultures 

    My research in film festival studies centres on the concept of the festive chronotope — an original theoretical framework developed in my monograph The European Film Festival: Carnival, Audiences and Spaces (Bloomsbury Academic, July 2026). Drawing on Bakhtin, Giuliana Bruno, Kristeva and Winnicott, the book maps five distinct festive chronotopes across European film festival cultures — imaginary, utopic, crisis, migrant and indigenous — arguing the importance of festival space, intimate and collective, in shaping programmes, curatorial practice, critical response and audience experience. My earlier work examined questions of national cinemas, programming, canon formation, archives and film industry histories. I co-edited the open-access volume Shaping Film Festivals in a Changing World: Practice and Methods (Amsterdam University Press, 2025) with Professor Tamara Falicov (University of Kansas), bringing together academics and practitioners from Europe, North America and the Global South.

    Central and Eastern European Screen Cultures

    My work in this area explores the transnational circulation of cinema under socialism and in the post-socialist period, including the role of film festivals as meeting points between East and West during the Cold War. More recently this work has led into questions of care, memory and war archives, with a particular focus on Ukrainian documentary filmmaking since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I have developed an aesthetics and ethics of care framework — drawing on James Thompson's work in theatre and performance — in relation to film festival programming under conditions of violence and crisis. 

    French Cinema and Intermediality

    My first monograph, Reading the French New Wave: Critics, Writers and Art Cinema in France (Columbia University Press/Wallflower, 2008), examined the intersection of film criticism (Cahiers du cinéma) and literary criticism (nouveau roman) in post-war France — the intermedial space in which the concepts of arthouse cinema, the film auteur and cinephilic audiences were forged. This interest in how written language and moving image generate meanings neither can produce alone runs through all my research areas. It is also the foundation of my pedagogical work, which explores writing as both research practice and critical method. 

    Research Centres and Institutes

  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions within Birkbeck:
    1

    I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest.

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • SARAH DURCAN
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Falsifying Narratives: An Aesthetic beyond Fiction and Documentary
      Description:
      Place holder
      Awarded:
      2018

    Teaching

    My teaching spans Foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I am committed to writing-rich, collaborative classrooms in which students write to think, read and discuss rather than solely to be assessed. This approach draws on the pedagogical traditions of Freire and bell hooks and was deepened through a two-year CLASP Fellowship at the Institute for Writing and Thinking, Bard College (2023–2025).

    Research and teaching are closely connected in my practice. The Film Festivals module includes an annual fieldtrip to the Berlin International Film Festival, giving students direct contact with curators, critics and industry professionals. I also have a strong interest in experiential and employability-focused learning — recent projects have seen students pitch their own film programmes to London venues including Bertha DocHouse and Close-Up.

    Teaching modules

    • Dissertation MA Film and Screen Media
    • Cinema Today
    • The Arts: Perspectives and Possibilities
    • Screen Media: History, Technology and Culture
    • Television: from small screen to smart screen
    • Film Festivals
    • European Cinema at the Crossroads
    • Research/Placement Project and Report MA Film and Screen Media
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    Book

    Book section

    Editorial

  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Media

    I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

    • European film festivals — history, politics and contemporary culture
    • Ukrainian documentary film and wartime cinema
    • Central and Eastern European cinema and cultural memory
    • The French New Wave and arthouse cinema
    • Gender equality in the European film industry
    • AI, writing and experiential pedagogy in higher education

    Services

    • External directorships
      2022-11-01T00:00:00

      Trustee, Kraszna-Krausz Foundation (2022–present) — a UK charity supporting publications in photography and the moving image. Responsibilities include oversight of the Moving Image panel judge appointment process and development of the New Book Grants initiative in partnership with London College of Communication/UAL.

    • Consultancies and expert advice
      2022-01-01T00:00:00 to 2023-03-01T00:00:00

      Film programme consultant, Plus One Films Berlinale Programme (2022 and 2023) — a professional development initiative for Chinese film industry practitioners accredited to the Berlin International Film Festival.