Dr Valentina Ippolito

My area of interest is the cinematic representation of the migrant journey. My monograph titled 'The dialogical gaze: the migratory journey to Italy in contemporary Italian and Romanian cinema' constitutes the first in-depth critical comparative study of the journey of migration to Italy in contemporary Italian and Romanian cinema. My research investigates the way in which the character of the Romanian migrant is represented in his encounter with Italy, on his physical, temporary, or imaginary journey between memory and desire. My work identifies a cinematic paradigm employed by filmmakers from both Romania and Italy, to represent difficult transnational journeys and migratory resettlement. This paradigm, defined as the ‘dialogical gaze’, refers to the cinematic juxtaposition of diverse cultural identities revealing similarities and differences between Italian and Romanian migration cinema. This study establishes that the proposed dialogical paradigm can act as a model to create opportunities for cultural interdiscursivity and social empathy in the wider cinema environment.

I am also a practicing documentary filmmaker and photographer. My documentary work is centered around the representation of otherness: indigenous cultures in North Thailand, Nepal and India; men as warriors in Basha Miao Village (China); women and babies in prison and the migrant identity. My most recent work—shot in India—has won several awards including the 'Urban Award' at Still Awards 2020 (Ireland) and 'Best International Documentary Photograph' at Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, 2019. 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 winning photograph Red Wind (2018), representing a smiling mother carrying her sleeping baby in the backstreets of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India, is part of "Boundaries: A Stranger's Journey across Nepal and India" - a documentary photography project interpreting the notion of boundaries through the face-to-face encounter between the local and the stranger, travelling across Nepal and India. 

The photographic series focuses on the construction of the face as a “widow, orphan, or stranger” as discussed by French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas in Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (1961).