Estrella Sendra joined King's in 2022 as Lecturer in CMCI Education (Festivals and Events). Prior to that she had worked as Lecturer in Global Media Industries at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, and Lecturer in Film and Screen Industries at SOAS, University of London, where she completed her doctoral thesis ‘Two-tier festivals in Senegal between the local and the international: A Case Study of the Festival International de Folklore et de Percussion in Louga (Senegal)’ (2018).

Her pedagogic approach is informed by her research and practice, as documentary filmmaker, festival worker and journalist. She is an advocator of Gestalt-informed hopeful pedagogy and of learning joyfully, through festivals and artistic research, with a particular interest in video essays. She is also invested in decolonising academia, for instance as co-principal investigator of ‘Decolonizing Film Festival Research in a Post-Pandemic World’, funded by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRFR-2021-00161, 2022-24).

She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, nominated to the King’s Education Awards (2023, 2024 and 2025) and recipient of the SOAS Director’s Teaching Prize for Inspirational Teaching (2020).

She is an associate editor in Screenworks, the peer-reviewed online publication of practice research in screen media.

Research interests

• African cinema and screen worlds
• Cultural and Film Festivals
• Film, screen media and creative industries in Senegal
• Decolonising creative industries and education
• Critical pedagogy, artistic research, video essays
• Gender and Creative Industries

Her main research interests are festivals, film, screen media and creative industries in Africa, critical pedagogy and artistic research, namely, video essays. Since 2011, when she directed Témoignages de l’autre côté, an awarded documentary about migration, she has been developing a regional expertise in Senegal. She is also interested in inclusive, decolonial and innovative audience-centred curatorial approaches, informed by her research and practice on film, festivals and creative industries in Senegal.

Teaching

Estrella Sendra teaches a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules on festivals, events and cultural management, both from a practice and research-led perspective, as well as on global film industries. She is an advocator of critical pedagogies involving joy, often applying creative assessment methods such as video essays and festival projects.

Expertise and public engagement

Estrella Sendra has work experience as a journalist, filmmaker and festival organiser. As such, she is a frequent collaborator with film festivals and cinemas, promoting the curation of African cinemas, for which she was awarded the King’s Research Impact Awards (International Collaboration) in 2024.

She has been involved in several African film festivals in the UK, Spain, Senegal and South Africa, as advisory board member of Film Africa, London (UK, 2021-2025), director and co-curator of the Cambridge African Film Festival (UK, 2014-16), jury member of the Festival StLouis’ DOCS, Saint-Louis (Senegal, 2023), jury member of the Jozi Film Festival, Johannesburg (South Africa, 2017-19), and international media offer of the African Film Festival of Cordoba-FCAT, Cordoba (Spain, 2012-13), among other. She was a programme consultant of the 2023 Francophone West African Season at The Garden Cinema in London, and is often invited to introduce and discuss films at various events and festivals, such as the London Migration Film Festival and the Cambridge Film Festival.

In 2024, she collaborated with the Festival Artístico Audiovisual Afrodescendencias de Costa Chica (Mexico), funded by Cultura Circular from the British Council, curating and facilitating the screenings of four Senegalese short films. She has further collaborated with a number of Senegalese festivals, including the Festival Films Femmes Afrique and the Festival StLouis’ DOCS.

In 2024, she organised a three-day programme featuring the work of award-winning Senegalese television series director, producer and entrepreneur, Kalista Sy, in collaboration with University of Oxford and The New Black Film Collective. She is also a passionate video essayist, often engaging in training and public events on their production and application to Higher Education and Research.

In July 2024, she completed a report on the current festival ecosystem in Senegal for EUNIC Sénégal, which led to a four-month training programme and funding scheme for cultural festivals in Senegal. As part of this, she was appointed as the training facilitator of the course on Artistic Direction and Curation (February 2025). In April 2025, she hosted The Tomorrow Party: Imagining a Sustainable Festival Ecosystem in Senegal with funding from the AHRC Arts and Humanities Research Council (£5,000) in partnership with EUNIC Senegal (€2,000), involving policy-makers, funders and industry professionals.

For more information, please see Dr Estrella Sendra's personal website.

Selected publications

• Sendra, Estrella, and Steedman, Robin (2025). ‘From Africa to London to the World: Film Africa’s Leading Role in the Circulation of African Cinemas’. In: Petty, S. (ed.) African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage. Framing Film Festivals. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan: 101-122. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_6
• Feal, Laura, and Sendra, Estrella (2025). ‘Curating Africa in Contemporary Film Festivals in Senegal: An Analysis of the Constellation of Collaborations’. In: Petty, S. (ed.) African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage. Framing Film Festivals. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan: 35-56. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_3
• Sendra, Estrella and Petty, Sheila (2025). ‘Editorial: Moving Beyond the (De)Colonial Container: The Work of Film Festivals’. In Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media no. 28: 1–10. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.28.00
• Ouzia, Julia, and Sendra, Estrella (2024). ‘Doing things differently through the lenses of Gestalt philosophy and practice-based learning: A hopeful outlook on the benefits of co-creating with students to support wellbeing for the Higher Education community.’ In Lemon, Narelle (ed.) Prioritising Wellbeing and Self-Care in Higher Education: How We Can Do Things Differently to Disrupt Silence. London and New York: Routledge: 106-118.
• Dovey, Lindiwe and Sendra, Estrella (2023). ‘Toward Decolonized Film Festival Worlds’. In de Valck, Marijke and Damiens, Antoine (eds.) Rethinking Film Festivals in the Pandemic Era and After. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan: 269-290. Available open access (05.01.23).