Dr Valentina Ippolito
Faculties, departments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Film and Photography
- School of Arts
- Knights Park
Senior Lecturer in Filmmaking; Deputy Director for the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
I'm a Senior Lecturer in Filmmaking and award-winning filmmaker and photographer with a DPhil in Cinema of Migration from the University of Oxford, Pembroke College. I am also Deputy Director for the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts at Kingston University.
I have an internationally recognised profile in practice as research focusing on the ethical and poetic representation of minorities and marginalised communities. My filmmaking and photography work is centred around the representation of otherness: the migrant identity; indigenous cultures in Thailand, Nepal and India; men as warriors in Basha Miao Village (China) and women and babies in prison. A central facet of my work is the ethical encounter between the filmmaker and the represented subject; as a self-shooting director this typically requires me to film in restricted and uncontrolled spaces, ranging from a mother-and-child prison unit in Rome to jungles in Northern Thailand. My documentaries have been screened at international film events across the world including Africa, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Mexico, India and the United States.
My recent documentary film, 1001 Days (2026) developed in collaboration with an Afghan refugee, journalist, and women’s rights advocate, was screened at the Migrant Voices in Contemporary European Cinema Conference at the University of Kent and critically discussed as a case study at the Refugees and Participatory Approaches symposium at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, sponsored by the United Nations Information Centre.
My academic publications have examined topics including the cinematic representation of the journey of migration, accented modes of self-representation by women migrants and the emancipatory potentials of fantasy in migrant women's resistance against violence. My article "Migrant Filmmakers" published in the 2023 Immigration Report by Caritas & Migrantes advocates for a more inclusive film industry for migrant women.
My work on contemporary cinema of migration includes my published monograph The dialogical gaze: the migratory journey to Italy in contemporary Italian and Romanian cinema. The book investigates the way in which the character of the Romanian migrant is represented in their encounter with Italy, on their physical, temporary, or imaginary journey between memory and desire. The dialogical gaze paradigm can act as a model to create opportunities for cultural interdiscursivity and social empathy in the wider cinema environment. The monograph was published in 2021 with the patronage of the Romanian National Film Archive/ Arhiva Nationala de Filme and the Romanian Academy in Rome.
I regularly contribute to public discourse on migration and representation through invited talks and lectures. I delivered the 2025 Rosewell Lecture at Wimbledon High School GDST, an independent girls schools in Wimbledon, where I spoke about women’s migratory journeys in contemporary cinema. I also participated in The Right to Be (Seen): Afrodescendant Women Artists in Italy and Beyond National Borders at Bucknell University (USA), where I presented "Animating Cultural Identity: Short Animated Films by Women Filmmakers". The paper examines new aesthetic techniques employed by women filmmakers to reimagine diasporic identities in contemporary cinema through the use of animated sequences, colour, and movement in films including My Mother’s Stew (UK, 2017) by Sade Adeniran, Villa Madjo (Belgium, 2023) by Grollimund, and In una goccia / In One Drop (Italy, 2023) by Valeria Weerasinghe.
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) Cinema of Migration, University of Oxford
- MA Documentary by Practice, Royal Holloway, University of London
- BA (Hons), University College London (UCL)
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Domains
I am a Senior Lecturer in Filmmaking at Kingston University and L4 Year Leader on the BA (Hons) Filmmaking degree. I have taught in leading film production and film studies programmes, convening and designing modules in areas such as film production and direction, film aesthetics, national cinemas, digital technologies and industry study. I have extensive teaching experience at the University of Bristol, the University of Oxford, Middlesex University London and Birmingham City University. As part of this experience, I have designed and convened Undergraduate and Postgraduate modules, delivered seminars and tutorials, given large group lectures, and supervised research projects.
Over the past three years at Kingston University, I have delivered a series of one-day film challenges on climate change, designed to prompt creative engagement with urgent environmental themes. Student films have been featured across the University and at London Climate Action Week. The one-day filmmaking challenge was also offered as part of the BAFTA Albert education partnership.
Qualifications
- HE Fellow
Courses taught
A commitment to social justice, equality, and the visibility of minority groups underpins my research. Through exhibiting my films and photographic work internationally, collaborating with community groups, and developing links with global organisations and charities, my work is concerned with making a significant social impact.
My academic research focuses on the cinematic representation of the migrant journey. Most recently, I directed 1001 Days (2025), a documentary made in collaboration with an Afghan refugee and journalist. Employing mobile phone footage, social media filters, and reconstruction, the film offers a dialogic account of displacement and digital self-representation.
In 2023, I published Migranti alla regia / Migrant Filmmakers, part of the Rapporto Immigrazione (Caritas and Migrantes), examining the emergence of migrant filmmaking in contemporary Italian cinema. The piece considers how migrant filmmakers in Italy are reshaping national narratives through self-representation, challenging reductive and stereotypical portrayals of migration. Drawing on recent examples, I reflect on the tensions between women's self-representation and existing narratives, and the ways in which film becomes a space for reclaiming narrative agency within a complex sociopolitical landscape.
In 2022, my article Vesna va veloce: resistenza attraverso realtà e fantasia / Vesna goes fast: resistance through reality and fantasy examined the interplay of resistance and fantasy in cinematic portrayals of Eastern European migrant women.
The role of imagination is also present in my monograph The Dialogical Gaze: The Migratory Journey to Italy in Contemporary Italian and Romanian Cinema (2021). The study identifies a distinct cinematic paradigm for representing transnational displacement and resettlement. The book includes interviews with contemporary Italian and Romanian filmmakers, archival research at the Romanian National Film Archive, and close film analyses.
In 2019, I published Io Rom romantica: The Discovery of the True Self in Laura Halilovic’s Accented Cinema. The paper examines the modes of representation employed by Romani filmmaker Laura Halilovic in her film Io Rom romantica/ Me Romantic Romani (2014) a comedy about an emerging Romani filmmaker searching for her true identity in a society that constantly rejects migrants.
My earlier work includes the Journey Through Imagination: Francesca (2018) an analysis of Romanian New Wave cinema that explored imagination as a critical mode through which migratory experience and cultural belonging are negotiated. Across these texts, I have investigated how cinema reframes dominant narratives around migration and identity in contemporary European cinema.
My practice-as-research has also been engaged with social identities at the margin and minority communities. My photographic work shot in India has received international recognition, including the ‘Urban Award’ at the Still Awards (Ireland, 2020) and ‘Best International Documentary Photograph’ at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival (2019). My photograph Red Wind (2018), portraying a mother carrying her sleeping child through the backstreets of Jodhpur, forms part of Boundaries: A Stranger’s Journey across Nepal and India, a transnational documentary project examining the notion of borders through the intimate encounter between local inhabitants and the travelling filmmaker.
Qualifications
- Research Team Leadership (Advance HE)
Specialisms
- Documentary Filmmaking
- Cinema of Migration
- Film Directing
Scholarly affiliations
- Pembroke College, University of Oxford
In 2023, I published a body of photographic work representing migration to Italy, featured in Migranti alla regia / Migrant Filmmakers, part of the XXXII Caritas and Migrantes Migration Report (Rapporto Immigrazione 2023).
This work builds on earlier research presented in my book The Dialogical Gaze: The Migratory Journey to Italy in Contemporary Italian and Romanian Cinema. The book launch was held in November 2021 at the Milan Culture Hall (Salone della Cultura), under the patronage of the General Consulate of Romania in Milan, the Romanian Cultural Institute in Venice, and the Italian–Romanian Cultural Horizons Association (Orizonturi Culturale Italo-Romane).
The emphasis on dialogism has been a recurring framework in my projects. This method is evident in Romanians of New York (United States, 2017), a documentary film sponsored by the Santander Travel Prize (University of Oxford) and Middlesex University.
In 2016, I directed The Last Warriors (China, 2016), a multidisciplinary film project examining the gendering of Miao warrior culture throughout the circle of life. The project was jointly funded by Beijing Normal University and the Academy for the International Communication of Chinese Culture, in collaboration with Oxford Prospects Programmes.
In 2014, I founded and curated the Pembroke Film Masterclass Series at the University of Oxford. Sponsored by Pembroke College’s Annual Fund and Dean of Graduates Fund, the series featured guest speakers including Amanda Nevill (Chief Executive, British Film Institute) and legendary documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield. The series marked a significant initiative for Pembroke College, positioning the college as an active site for dialogue between creative practice and film scholarship.
As a result of the Pembroke Film Masterclass Series, I was featured in the Pembroke College Oxford 400 Characters digital gallery, which celebrates individuals who have contributed to the college community and wider world, during Pembroke’s first four centuries at the University of Oxford.
- Deputy Director for the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts, Kingston University
- Level 4 Year Leader; Module Leader for Voices (L4) and Professional Project (L6)
- Academic Peer Mentoring Champion (2022-2025)
- Deputy Leader, Looking China: Charm, Ethnography, Culture, Guizhou, China. Sponsored by Beijing Normal University and the Academy for the International Communication of Chinese Culture.