Pinar Fontini

Dr Fontini is a filmmaker and researcher who lectures in the Media program.

She works at the intersection of Middle Eastern Cinema and Feminist Film Studies. Her research explores women’s filmmaking, especially in the Middle East, as a form of communication, solidarity, and a space of 'radical possibility'. Her research has been published in Camera Obscura, Feminist Media Studies and Senses of Cinema. Her first monograph, Women's New Cinema in Contemporary Turkey: As if We Were Free, As If A Beautiful Life Were Possible, will be published in April 2025 with Edinburgh University Press and Agora Books. She is the recipient of Chancellor's Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne (2023). 

Her feature-length documentary films have received numerous accolades worldwide. Dream Workers (2021) screened at the prestigious International Adana Golden Boll Film Festival and is hosted on the international art-house streaming service MUBI. And What's the Name of the Film? (2022) screened at Internatonal Antalya Golden Organge Film Festival, MUBI, Taste of Anatolia Film Festival and Doing Women's Film and Television History Conference. She received the Platform Award at the 8th Antalya Film Forum Work in Progress Platform (2021).