Dr. Belén Vidal
Dr. Belén Vidal
King’s College London, United Kingdom
About me
I am Reader in Film Studies (Associate Professor) at King’s College London. I joined the Department of Film Studies at KCL in 2008. Previously I worked as Lecturer at the University of St Andrews; I hold a PhD from Glasgow University and an MA from Georgetown University.
My research focuses on the historical film genres and representations of history and memory in European cinemas, with a focus on Western Europe. My work on the biopic looks at this genre through questions of medium and screen performance. I am also a specialist in Spanish cinema; I have published on new modes of cinema after the 2008 economic crisis and on the construction of political memory in popular media in Spain. I am researching Spanish cultures of cinephilia and questions of film historiography (ongoing).
I am the author of Figuring the Past. Period Film and the Mannerist Aesthetic (Amsterdam UP, 2012) and Heritage Film. Nation, Genre and Representation (Wallflower/Columbia UP, 2012). I am also the co-editor of The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture (Routledge, 2014) and Cinema at the Periphery (WSUP, 2010). Publications include the open access papers “The Barbara Hypothesis: Performance and Spectatorship in the Musical Biopic” (French Screen Studies, 2023), “New Women’s Biopics: Performance and the Queering of Herstor/ies” (European Journal of Life Writing, 2021) and “From Europe with Pride: Heritage, Community and Queer Moves” (Open Library of Humanities, 2019)
I was a steering committee member in the research network Producing the Post-National Popular: The Expanding Imagination of Mainstream French Films and Television Series (Warwick University; AHRC international network 2019-2023) and member of the research network “Transnational relations in Spanish-American digital cinema: the cases of Spain, Mexico and Argentina” (University Carlos III of Madrid; Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness/European Regional Development Fund 2015-2018).
I have been member of the editorial board of NECSUS. European Journal of Media Studies since 2018.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/dr-belen-vidal
Contact
belen.vidal[at]kcl.ac.uk
Research Interests
History and memory in cinema; the biopic; the heritage film; performance; gender; queer theory; Spanish film and media; cinephilia and film cultures.
Publications
Vidal, B. (2023) ‘The Barbara Hypothesis. Performance and Spectatorship in the Musical Biopic’, French Screen Studies, pp 1-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2023.2195260
Vidal, B. (2021), ‘New Women’s Biopics: Performance and the Queering of Herstor/ies,’ European Journal of Life Writing, Vol. 10, pp. 17-40. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.10.37911
Vidal, B (2019), ‘A Somatic Poetics of Crisis Cinema: The gesture of self-harm in three Spanish films’, Hispanic Research Journal, Vol 20.1, pp. 42-57. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14682737.2019.1584472
Vidal, B. (2018), ‘Cinephilia Goes Global: Loving Cinema in the Post-cinematic Age,’ In The Routledge Companion to World Cinema, eds. Rob Stone, Paul Cooke, Stephanie Dennison and Alex Marlow-Mann. New York and London: Routledge, pages 404-414.
Vidal, B (2018), Dossier: ‘Mapping digital practices in Hispanic Cinemas’, Dossier editor and contributor. Screen, Vol 59. 2.
Vidal, B (2016), ‘Radical politics, middlebrow cinema. Salvador (Puig Antich) and the search for a new consensus,’ in Middlebrow Cinema, ed. Sally Faulkner. New York: Routledge, pp. 156-175.
Kourelou, O., Liz M. and Vidal, B. (2014) “Crisis and Creativity: The New Cinemas of Portugal, Greece and Spain’, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film Vol 12. 1&2, pp. 133-151. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/ncin.12.1-2.133_1 Translated into German as: “Krise und Kreativität. Zum Neuen Kino in Portugal, Griechenland und Spanien,” Montage AV, Vol. 23.2, pp. 151-174.
Vidal, B and Tom Brown (eds). The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture. New York: Routledge
Vidal, B. (2012) Figuring the Past: Period Film and the Mannerist Aesthetic. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Vidal, B (2012) Heritage Film. Nation, Genre and Representation. New York: Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press
My AGE-C story
The representation of age and the human ageing processes in moving image culture and their intersectional relation to gendered expectations and pressures form an area of inquiry still in its infancy in film and media studies. The way our favourite actors bear the imprint of time in their bodies and in their images; how cinema ‘does’ age, and how we age with cinema are questions that deeply interest me for their aesthetic, cultural and political significance. AGE-C provides a framework to examine questions of age and identity in a European context that is also in flux with regards to the place of its ageing populations.
As a scholar interested in the way we relate to an imagined European identity and exert citizenship through cultural production and consumption, my contribution to AGE-C seeks to transfer my experience in looking at national film in international contexts into a collective project that unlocks age and gender as axes of meaning that unite and divide us across the European continent, within and beyond its borders. This project is also an opportunity for thinking about inter-generational communication; how it shapes our sense of belonging, preserves histories, brings memories alive and creates change for the future.