• Political Torture in Contemporary U.S. and Chilean Cinema: Documentary Evidence and Fiction Film
• Supervisors: Professors Stella Bruzzi and John King
• In my research project I explore how recent fiction films imagine torture cases based on factual events, and how over- and underexposure of these events in the media may influence their fictional portrayal. To this end my study objects represent opposing poles in terms of media treatment: on the one hand, U.S. fiction films positioned "with or against" the infamous Abu Ghraib images, on the other hand contemporary Chilean films coping with the visually underdocumented legacy of torture on a massive scale. I am particularly interested in the ways in which fiction film positions itself in relation to other media, such as photography and documentary. In spite of an abundance or lack of visual evidence, how does narrative cinema translate and negotiate factual torture cases? These films construct images and narratives for events that are either largely unspoken of or framed in specific discourses, but which continue to shape political, cultural and social realities.
• My research interests include contemporary U.S. television, Whiteness Studies, Israeli Cinema, the vicissitudes of violence in fiction film and literature, film theory, graphic novels, feminist and gender questions