Âéw¶¹´«Ã½

Areas of academic interest and expertise include:  Hispanic Cinemas , i.e. Spain and Mexico mainly (including film history, contemporary peninsular Spanish cinema, television companies, popular Francoist cinema, the comedy, art cinema, the period blockbuster, the documentary, contemporary horror, and the work of Luis Bunuel, Alejandro Aménabar, Santiago Segura, Pedro Almodovar, Juan Antonio Bayona, Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza (Spain) and Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro (Mexico). Also, French Cinema (1920s avant-gardes, Surrealism, Bazin, Godard, Kassovitz), European Cinema (German Fantastic and Expressionism, Italian neo-realism, French and Czech new waves) and Film Theory (including cult, trash and paracinema practices in Spain).

• 1974-76 British Academy Major State Studentship
• 1979 Sir Ernest Cassell Trust: Ph.D. Research Bursary
• 1980 Sir Ernest Cassell Trust: Ph.D. Research Bursary
• 1983 Doctoral Âéw¶¹´«Ã½, Autonomous University of Barcelona
• 1984 British Academy, Small Research Grant
• 1985 Visiting Lecturer, Central University of Barcelona
• 1986 British Academy, Small Research Grant,
• 1988 Visiting Lecturer, Central & Autonomous Universities of Barcelona
• 1990 Sir Henry Thomas Award, Birmingham University
• 1992 Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Madrid, Research Bursary
• 1996 British Academy, Small Research Grant 
• 2001 British Academy, Small Research Grant 
• 2004 AHRC, Small Research Grant (£1495)
• 2007 AHRC, Research Leave Award (£15000)
• 2009 British Academy Travel Grant (£1500)
• 2010 Spanish Ministry of Culture (1200 E)

• AHRC Peer Review College, 2010-13.

• Association of Contemporary Iberian Studies (1979-)
• Association of British Hispanists (1980-)
• International Association of Hispanists (1985-)
• Asociación Internacional de Historiadores del Cine (1990-)

• Cert TEFL (1976-77)
• PGCE in Modern Languages (U of Liverpool 1977)

‘Un futuro para el cine espanol?’ International Conference on Spanish Cinema, Castellón, Spain, 16-20 June, 2012. Co-organiser and participant with Prof Vicente José Benet of U. Castellón.

‘Industry, genre, audiences: trends in contemporary Spanish cinema’.  Paper delivered at International Symposium on Spanish Cinema, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, July, 2008.

‘Life, Death and the Disneyland question in Amenábar’s Abre los ojos’ (1997).  Paper delivered at Association of Contemporary Iberian Studies, Dublin City University, Dublin, September 2009.

‘El espectador y el cine español’.  Paper at IVAC (Instituto Valenciano del Audiovisual Ricardo Muñoz Suay), May 2010.  Part-funded by Spanish Ministerio de Educación.

‘History, Politics and Identities in Fernando Trueba’s Belle Epoque (1992)’, International Conference on Romantic Comedy, via Centre for Adaptations, March 2011. Paper at Âéw¶¹´«Ã½, UK.

• Spanish, French, European and Latin American cinema.
• Consultancy: Journal editing (in Hispanic and Film Studies), Peer Reviewer (AHRC). External Reader for book proposals at Palgrave Macmillan, MUP, Routledge, OUP & Hodder Arnold.
• Film conferences in UK, USA and Spain.
• Libertad Digital TV & La Gaceta/Intereconomia.

• Victoria Walden, MA , 2nd supervisor.  Passed 2011.

AHRC Fellowship application (submitted Feb 2012) for sabbatical in 2013 as PI to lead a joint Anglo-Spanish project on ‘Contemporary Spanish Cinema and its audiences’.  This is a 3-year project overall, starting July 2012, with a preliminary international conference in Castellón, Spain and ending with conferences in Spain and the UK in 2014.  Main outputs: a book written jointly with Prof Vicente José Benet (Universitat Jaume Primer, Castellón), to be published in English and Spanish and a series of 5 articles (BJ3, VJB2) to be prepared during the award and published in scholarly journals. 

Grant Application to Spanish Ministry of Education to participate in teacher exchange with colleague, Dr Enric Sullá, from Dept of Literary Theory, Autonomous University of Barcelona, by providing teaching to PGs in Film and Literary Theory for 15 hours over two weeks, March-April 2009.  Grant application successful, but unable to undertake visit due to clashes with assessment of Periodic Review document, which I coordinated and edited for the department of Film Studies between July 2008 and April 2009.

MFJ Research Committee-funded grant (£300) for visit to Spain March-April 2008 to part-fund background research for paper for International Symposium on Spanish Cinema and train travel to Newcastle University, July 2008, dealing with the public funding of Spanish cinema.

MFJ Research Committee-funded grant (£455) to part-fund archive research in Spain in May-June 2010 to write article on Amenabar’s Agora (2009), plus new chapter for MUP book; also, to interview two exec producers at Tele Cinema (Tele5) Madrid, concerning the company’s role and strategy in funding the film, i.e. Spain’s costliest production in its entire film history. 

General Editor (UK/Europe), Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, published by Intellect Publishers, Bristol.  I founded the journal in 2002/3, with the first issue appearing in 2004, and now deal with all submissions, correspondence, conference administration, special issues and special projects in the UK and European areas.  I have a co-editor colleague in the USA who deals with all of the above in relation to USA, Latin America, Pacific Rim etc.  The journal has a healthy submission level, publishes 2 issues per year and co-sponsors and administers relevant international conferences (such as the Tulane conference in 2009 and Madrid 2012) and publishing initiatives on special topic areas, e.g. we are currently considering a proposal concerning contemporary documentary film.

Journal Refereeing:

Other Reviewing Activities:

My work on modern and contemporary Spanish national cinema is very well-known in the field and accorded credibility and authority across the world, particularly in Spain, UK, Europe and the USA. This is made clear partly through citation and acknowledgement not only in scholarly papers but also in book reviews, conference reviews, course templates, booklists and recommended reading.  I am also frequently asked to lecture, deliver seminars, introduce relevant films or film movements at conferences and symposia (at home and abroad), as well as provide opinions and views on the Spanish film industry for radio and the press in Spain. I was also fortunate to be granted nearly 2 hours of interview time with two senior film producers (Srs Alvaro Agustin and Jaime Ortiz de Artiñano) of Tele5Cinema in April 2009, to deal with the financing of Amenábar’s Agora and related issues of distribution and exhibition of the film. The encounter gave me very useful access on the basis of which I was able to produce a long, well-informed final chapter for my monograph on Amenábar, which is already produced and which will appear (I am assured by MUP) in June 2012. I have also co-organised an international conference on Spanish cinema for mid-July 2012, where among other activities, I will be able to promote my new book and pre-promote a further joint project on contemporary Spanish cinema and its audiences (already optioned by Palgrave Macmillan).

Hitherto, my single author studies and jointly-written books have rarely made any serious money, though a jointly-written, high level, Student Guide to Spanish Cinema (Harper Collins, 2005, with Prof Mark Alllinson) did sell nearly 2000 copies (mostly in the USA), which is rather good for this kind of publication. It has become a standard work on virtually all courses dealing with modern and contemporary Spanish Cinema. Reviews have been positive on the whole. It even appears frequently on scholarly bibliographies because of its very sound historical overview (ch.1) and the innovative final chapter on film theory in Spain, both of which I authored, among others.  I am not sure that my single director/auteur study, on Alejandro Amenabar, will do quite as well in English, but may do better in Spanish translation. I am currently investigating Spanish publishers.