Dr Ana Camila Esteves

Ana Camila Esteves is a journalist, cultural producer, researcher, and film curator. She holds a master’s degree in film studies and a PhD on contemporary African cinemas at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil), with a thesis on Netflix’s foray into Nollywood, in Nigeria. She is the co-founder, director, and curator of Mostra de Cinemas Africanos / Brazil African Film Festival and of Cine África Film Club, a contributing curator of Africa in Motion Film Festival (Scotland), and part of the selection committee of Vues d’Afrique film festival (Canada). She co-edited the e-book “Cinemas Africanos Contemporâneos: perspectivas críticas” (Contemporary African Cinemas: critical approaches - 2020), and she is the founder and editor of Revista Crítica de Cinemas Africanos / Critical Magazine of African Cinemas. She collaborates as curator, programmer, teacher, panellist and translator with several institutions and festivals in Brazil and abroad. She is currently a Research Associate at King’s College London, as part of the New Frontiers in Research Fund project ‘Decolonising Film Festival Research Methodologies in the Pandemic Era’, led by Professor Sheila Petty (University of Regina/Canada) and Dr Estrella Sendra (King’s College London/UK).

Research interests and PhD supervision

Her research interests include the narratives of everyday lives, mobilities/migrations, curatorial practices, and issues of diffusion and reception of African films in the world and in Brazil, with a focus on festivals and streaming platforms – topics on which she has published in Brazil, Portugal and Spain in recent years.

Selected publications

ESTEVES, ANA CAMILA; OLIVEIRA, J. ; LIMA, M. G. . Cinemas Africanos: pesquisa e curadoria em língua portuguesa. In: Paulo Cunha; Manuela Penafria; Fernando Cabral; Tiago Fernandes. (Org.). Cinema em Português XIV Jornadas. 1ed.Covilhã: Labicom, 2022, v. , p. 165-180.

ESTEVES, A. C.. Habitar o mundo, habitar as fronteiras - contextos de migrações/ mobilidades nos cinemas africanos contemporâneos. In: Ana Camila Esteves; Jusciele Oliveira. (Org.). Cinemas Africanos contemporâneos - abordagens críticas. 1ed.São Paulo: Sesc, 2020, v. 1, p. 124-150.

ESTEVES, A. C.; ALMEIDA, J. ; LIMA, M. G. . De corpos periféricos ao cinema de autorrepresentação: entrevista com Welket Bungué. Rebeca, v. 9, p. 293-310, 2020.

ESTEVES, A. C.. Narrativas em disputa no cinema nigeriano: um olhar sobre Nollywood a partir de Green White Green (2016). PERSPECTIVA HISTÓRICA, v. 8, p. 37-53, 2019.

SERAFIM, JOSÉ FRANCISCO ; ESTEVES, ANA CAMILA ; DE LIMA, MORGANA GAMA . Cinemas africanos e os meandros da visibilidade. REVISTA FAMECOS (ONLINE), v. 26, p. 31675, 2019.

Expertise and public engagement

Some highlights include:

• She was invited to collaborate with Africa in Motion Film Festival (Scotland) as a curator and jury member of short films competition (from 2019 to present);
• Since 2019, she has been conducting interviews with African filmmakers, published on festival catalogues and in video, as you can check here;
• Since 2019, she has been working in collaboration with scholars in different countries, experts in African cinemas, by translating their articles into Portuguese, being a guest professor in their classes, inviting them to write for our publications, or to being part of conferences, roundtables, and other events. Some of these names include: Lindiwe Dovey, Jonathan Haynes, Sheila Petty, Melissa Thackway, Estrella Sendra, Daniela Ricci, Lizelle Bisschoff, Alexie Tcheuyap, Sada Niang and Kenneth Harrow.
• In 2021, she was invited as a panellist at Atlas Ateliers - Festival International du Film de Marrakech, to talk about her experience in bringing African films to Brazil, as well as to participate on the industry meetings of the festival;
• In 2022, she was invited as keynote speaker at the Global Women's Film Heritage: Networking Symposium, organised by QMU in Edinburgh and funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with the conference: "Family archives in black Latin American women's films: dialogues between the past and the present".