Associate Professor Michelle Langford
BA (Hons 1) (University of Sydney)
PhD (University of Sydney)
I am Associate Professor in Film Studies and Convenor of Film Studies. My core teaching includes ARTS1060 Introduction to Film Studies, ARTS2063 National Cinemas and ARTS3063 Cinemas and Cultures.
- Publications
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
My core research and publication activities are driven by my longstanding interest in the cinemas of Germany and Iran. These vastly different national cinemas are closely connected through my theorisation of allegorical processes in film combined with a close attention to the impact of socio-political and historical contexts on the development of film style. My current research is focused primarily on Iranian cinema. This emphasis on Iranian cinema has allowed me to extend and expand my theorisation of allegorical cinema into an area of national cinema studies that is both contemporary and dynamic. My most recent research project looks at the German films of the Iranian Filmmaker Sohrab Shahid Saless.
My most recent monograph Allegory in Iranian Cinema: The Aesthetics of Poetry and Resistance was published in 2019 and I am co-editor (with Maryam Ghorbankarimi and Zahra Khosroshahi) of IB Tauris Handbook of Iranian Cinema, which was published in 2024.
I am academic program co-ordinator for the Persian Film Festival
My Research Supervision
Successful PhD Completions:
- Max Bledstein: Shocking Exchange: The Iranian Horror Film (2022)
- Mazda Moradabbasi: Adaptation in Iranian Cinema: From Literary Inspiration to Social Critique in New Wave and Child-Centred Cinema (2021)
- Mahsa Salamati: Transnational Film Circulation in the Iranian Context: From Conjunctural Crisis to Discursive Heterotopia (2019)
- Teo Miaw Lee: Industry, Space and Identity: Diasporic Chinese Indonesian Filmmaking in Perspective (2018)
- Melanie Robson: The Long Take in Contemporary European Cinema (as co-supervisor) (2017)
- Klara Bruveris: Globalisation and Latvian Cinema: Examining the impact of global flows on the development of aesthetic and thematic trends in contemporary Latvian film (2016)
- Rodney Wallis: (Re)Imagining the Promised Land: Israel and America in American Post-war Cinema (as co-supervisor) (2016)
- Rosa Holman: Iranian Women’s Cinema: Recovering Voice, Reclaiming Authority (2015)
- Louise Malcolm: Film Performance in the Films of Wong Kar-Wai (2014)
- Naadir Junaid: Bengali political cinema: protest and social transformation (as co-supervisor) (2013)
- Sanaz Fotouhi: Ways of Being, Lines of Becoming: A Study of Post-Revolutionary Iranian Literature in English (as joint supervisor) (2012)
- Eva Lewkowicz: Beyond the Happy Ending: Re-Viewing Female 'Citizenship' in the Mexican Telenovela Industry (2011)
- AeGyung Shim: Korean Cinema of Perseverance: Pushing the Boundaries of Quality During the Park Chung Hee Authoritarian Era, 1961-1970 (2010) (as co-supervisor)
- Khosrow Shahriari: Breaking Down Borders and Bridging Barriers: Iranian Taziyeh Theatre (2007)
Successful MA Completions
- David Curzon, Disability Representation in Australian Film and Television (2024)
Honours Supervisions
- Eva Metiljevic 'Accidentally Autistic: The Unexpected Portrayal of the Neurodivergent Woman through Cinematic Tropes' (2024)
- Nicole Cadelina '"Nation is a myth": Confronting Violence in Contemporary Philippine Cinema (2010-2020)' (2021)
- Alex Malcolm 'Affective Memory in Post-2000s Zainichi Cinema' (2019 - caretaker supervisor)
- Zachary Karpinellison Negotiating Spectatorship: Censorship and Change in Hollywood Films Released in China' (2018)
- Thi Tuong Vi Nguyen 'Red Silk and Golden Flowers: An analysis of Zhang Yimou’s Ju Dou (1990) and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)' (2011)
- Klara Bruveris "‘Wished-for’ Masculinities and Harsh Realities: Searching for the Latvian Man" (2010)
- Martin Clarke 'The Return of the Sacred in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema.' (2009)
My Teaching
Introduction to Film Studies
National Cinemas
Cinemas and Cultures