Dina Iordanova
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dina Iordanova (born 1960) is a notable specialist in world cinema, with special expertise in the cinema of the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Europe in general. Her research approaches cinema on a meta-national level and focuses on the dynamics of transnational film; she has special interest in issues related to cinema at the periphery and in alternative historiography. She has published extensively on international and transnational film art and film industry, and convenes research networks on film festivals and on the dynamics of global cinema.
She has been credited with creating the Film Studies programme at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland’s first University (founded 1413), where she was appointed to their first ever Chair in Film and engaged in a wide-ranging effort to modernize effort the University's portfolio, bringing the programme to an internationally respected status within a short time. She also founded the Centre for Film Studies, which she currently directs.
Born in an intellectual family in communist Bulgaria, she read Philosophy and German and obtained her Doctorate under the guidance of Prof. Isaac Passy in Aesthetics and cultural history at Kliment Okhridski University in Sofia, in 1986. She worked at the Institute for Cultural Studies before emigrating to Canada in 1990. In emigration she lived and worked in Canada and the USA, later on settling in the UK in 1998 and becoming actively engaged in European networks and projects. Prior to her arrival at St. Andrews, she held positions at the Radio-TV-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin, a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago, and at the University of Leicester in England. Her work is reviewed widely, translated in over fifteen languages and adopted for use in courses at over seventy Universities internationally.
She writes the popular blog DinaView on topics related to world cinema, culture, technology and money.
[edit] Bibliography
• Budding Channels of Peripheral Cinema, Blurb 2008.
• Contemporary Balkan Cinema, supplement to Cineaste, Summer 2007.
• Indian Cinema Abroad: Transnational Historiography of Cinematic Exchanges, special issue of South Asian Popular Culture Studies, October 2006.
• Cinema of the Balkans, Wallflower, 2006.
• Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film, Wallflower, 2003
• Romanies in International Cinema, Special issue of Framework, 44.2 Fall 2003.
• Emir Kusturica, BFI, 2002
• Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and the Media, BFI, 2001
• BFI’s Companion of East European and Russian Cinema, BFI, 2000.
[edit] External Links
• Website of the Centre for Film Studies, University of St. Andrews
• Iordanova's page at the University of St. Andrews website
• ‘East of Eden’, a short essay by Iordanova on Becker’s Good Bye Lenin (Sight and Sound, London, 2003)
• ‘Dream Come True’, a short essay by Iordanova on Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood, accompanying the 2007 DVD release of the film by the Criterion Collection (New York)
• Iordanova film choices at Facets(Chicago) web-site Celebrity Favourites, 2004
• Iordanova Top Ten Films Poll Sight and Sound (London), 2002
