Cambridge Film and Screen is the home of research and teaching in film and screen studies at the University of Cambridge, and is headed by its Director, Corpus Fellow and Professor of Film Studies and Visual Culture, Professor JD Rhodes. They are currently hosting the award-winning Algerian-Brazilian filmmaker and visual artist Karim Aïnouz as its Filmmaker in Residence for 2025. Aïnouz will be in Cambridge this week participating in a series of public screenings and workshops. The residency will culminate in a symposium on Aïnouz’s practice on Friday 6 June at the McCrum Lecture Theatre, 1:00-6:00pm, featuring presentations by Dr Mariana da Cunha (Westminster University), Dr Tiago de Luca (University of Warwick), Dr Geoff Maguire and Dr Jules O’Dwyer (University of Cambridge), Professor Laura Rascaroli (University College Cork), Dr Humberto Saldanha (Queen’s University Belfast), and Professor Lisa Shaw (University of Liverpool). A detailed programme of these events is presented below.

Aïnouz’s distinct and innovative vision transcends formal boundaries, making feature films, documentaries, and hybrid works that range from experimental queer cinema to complex character studies and poetic explorations of his family origins. He debuted with the period feature Madame Satã (2002), a trailblazing portrayal of real-life female impersonator and street fighter João Francisco dos Santos (1900-1976), who began performing in 1930s Rio de Janeiro. The film premiered at the Un Certain Regard program of Cannes in 2002 and has since won over 40 prizes in national and international film festivals. Twenty years after its release, Film Quarterly praised the film as “a classic of queer cinema…well ahead of its time” in its representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in Brazil.

A prolific and versatile director, Aïnouz has made numerous other feature films, documentaries, and essay films, including Firebrand (2023), Mariner of the Mountains (2021), Nardjes A. (2020), Central Airport THF (2018), Futuro Beach (2014), The Silver Cliff (2011), I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You (2009), and Love for Sale(2006). Aïnouz’s 2019 melodrama The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year and several other international prizes. Motel Destino (2024) is Aïnouz’s latest feature.

In addition to film, Aïnouz has worked in other media, including television (he co-directed the TV series Alice for HBO Latin America), photography and video-installations that have been exhibited in The Whitney Museum of American Art, the São Paulo Biennial, the Sharjah Biennial, Berlin’s DAAD gallery and Videobrasil. Aïnouz is also a screenwriter, tutor at Porto Iracema das Artes in Fortaleza, his hometown, and member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. 

Before devoting himself to his own film projects in 1992, Aïnouz worked as assistant director to Todd Haynes in New York and Walter Salles in Rio de Janeiro. Aïnouz holds a degree in Architecture from the University of Brasilia and a Master’s degree in Cinema Studies from the New York University. After his Master’s, he enrolled in the Program of Independent Studies of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The Filmmaker in Residence programme was established in 2016. Filmmakers who have participated in the programme are: Joanna Hogg (2016); Gianfranco Rosi (2017); Lucrecia Martel (2018); Todd Solondz (2019); Peggy Ahwesh (2021); debbie tucker green (2022); Christophe Honoré (2023); and Onyeka Igwe (2024). 

PUBLIC PROGRAMME (Please note that timings and venues are subject to change.)

MONDAY 2 JUNE

5:30-8:00pm, Umney Theatre, Robinson College 

Madame Satã (2002, 105 minutes). Screening + Q&A with the filmmaker and Dr Isaias Fanlo.

TUESDAY 3 JUNE

5:30-8:00pm, Yusuf Hamied Theatre, Christ’s College

Futuro Beach (2014, 106 minutes). Screening + Q&A with the filmmaker and Dr Geoffrey Maguire.

WEDNESDAY 4 JUNE 

5:00-8:00pm, Umney Theatre, Robinson College.

The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão (2019, 139 minutes). Screening + Q&A with the filmmaker and Professor Maite Conde.

THURSDAY 5 JUNE

5:30-8:00pm, Yusuf Hamied Theatre, Christ’s College.

Mariner of the Mountains (2021, 98 minutes). Screening + Q&A with the filmmaker and Dr Kareem Estefan.

FRIDAY 6 JUNE

SYMPOSIUM

1:00pm-6:00pm, McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College

Welcome and Opening Remarks, 1:00pm. Maite Conde & Kareem Estefan (University of Cambridge)

PANEL 1: Queer Bodies, Intersections, Potentialities. Moderated by Maite Conde

1:15-2:45pm 

Lisa Shaw (University of Liverpool). “Madame Satã: Afro-Brazilian Identity, Malandragem, Queerness”

Geoffrey Maguire and Dr Jules O’Dwyer (University of Cambridge). “If These Walls Could Talk: Motel Destino’s Erotic Thresholds”

Humberto Saldanha (Queen’s University Belfast). “Queer Cosmopolitanism in Futuro Beach through Hospitality and Feeling at Home”

Coffee break, 2:45-3:15pm

PANEL 2: Form, Space and Movement. Moderated by Kareem Estefan

3:15-5:00pm 

Tiago de Luca (University of Warwick). “I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You (2009): Between Film and Geological Histories” 

Mariana Cunha (University of Westminster, London). “Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost: Karim Aïnouz’s Choreographies for Untamed Bodies” 

Laura Rascaroli (University College Cork). “A Cinematic Atopia: Essaying the Thirdspace in Karim Aïnouz’s Mariner of the Mountains” 

Open discussion with Karim Aïnouz, who will offer a brief response, 5:15-5:45pm

Download abstracts and speaker bios for the symposium.