Dr Russ Hunter

Assistant Professor

Department: Northumbria School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries

Russ Hunter is an Assistant Professor in Film & Television Studies in the Department of Arts at Northumbria University and works closely with a number of European film festivals. His work focuses upon two main research areas: film festivals and genre film (particularly Italian genre cinema).

In 2023 Russ was a keynote speaker, outlining his genre festival research, at Fear 2000 (Sheffield Hallam University) and was invited by the Norwegian Federation of Film Societies as one of their presitgious annual Film Seminar series speakers. He has have given talks at a wide variety of international film festivals to both general audiences and to filmmakers, including Babel Film Festival (Cagliari, Italy), The European Minority Film Festival (Husum, Germany) and Sunderland Shorts Film Festival (Sunderland, UK). Russ is currently working with a number of European genre film festivals, such as Offscreen Film Festival (Brussels, Belgium), Kurja Polt Genre Film Festival (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Abertoir Horror Festival (Wales, UK), where he organises a variety of educational initiatives.

Russ co-edited Italian Horror Cinema with Dr Stefano Baschiera (Queens University Belfast) and is currently writing a book on Italian giallo and horror director Dario Argento. His scholarship has appeared in journals such as Studies in European Cinema, Film Studies, The Italianist, The Journal of Popular Culture and The Journal Italian of Cinema and Media Studies, as well as in books such as International Film Festivals: Contemporary Cultures and History Beyond Venice and Cannes (2018), Italian Horror Cinema (2016), Screening the Undead: Vampires and Zombies in Film & Television (2013) and European Horror since 1945 (2012).

He is a recognised expert on both film festivals and genre cinema and has provided analysis for numerous media outlets. In this respect, he has been interviewed for a variety of mediasources such as BUZZ (Brussels), Radio Študent (Slovenia), Radiotelevizija Slovenija (Slovenia) and The New York Times (USA). He has also appeared on a numver of documentaries, such as: ‘Fascism on a thread: The strange story of Nazisploitation films’ for the American Severin release of Luigi Batzella’s The Beast in Heat (1977) and ‘The Prince of Plasma: The Gianetto de Rossi story’, a retrospective on Italian SFX/make-up maestro Gianetto De Rossi for the German Turbine release of Rob Cohen’s Daylight (1996) and the USA release of Killer Crocodile for Severin.

Russ has written for a number of popular film publications including When Animals Attack: The 70 Best Horror Movies with Killer Animals, This is Cinema, 101 Cult Films, 101 Action Films, 101 Horror Films, 101 War Films, 101 Science Fiction films, 501 Movie Stars and 501 Movie Directors.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My research interests lay in both the area of film festival studies and genre cinema. My current research is based around genre filmfestivals and I also write on Italian horror cinema, European horror cinema and Italian genre cinema more generally.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Prometheus by the Bay: Hollywood and tech capitalism in Silicon Valley, Street, J., Hunter, R. 1 Feb 2024, In: Journal of Popular Culture
Capturing European Crime: European Crime Cinema at European Film Festivals, Hunter, R. 1 Mar 2022, In: Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media
European crime films at European Film Festivals: Cannes, Berlin and Venice (Confidential), Hunter, R. 2021
The sign of the cross: Georges Melies and early Satanic cinema, Hunter, R. 5 Oct 2021, Giving the Devil His Due, New York, Fordham University Press
Cult cinema and film festivals, Hunter, R. 2 Dec 2019, The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema, London, Taylor & Francis
Genre Film Festivals and Rethinking the Definition of “The Festival Film”, Hunter, R. 29 Sep 2018, The International Film Festivals: Contemporary Cultures and History Beyond Venice and Cannes, I. B. Tauris
Morasta mesta. Italijanski film okoljski diskurzi, Hunter, R. 1 Nov 2018, In: Kino!
'I have a picture of the Monster!': Il mostro di Frankenstein and the search for Italian horror cinema, Hunter, R. 1 Mar 2017, In: Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies
Kurja Polt: Kulti, Klasike in ŽAnrski Odpadniki na 35 mm, Jones, S., Hunter, R., Egan, K., Sexton, J., Peče, M., Dariš, M., Krajnc, M., Nikolič, P., Lovrenov, M. 2017
Horrifically local? European horror and regional funding initiatives, Hunter, R. 1 Sep 2016, In: Film Studies

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Invited talk: Film Festival Strategies for Emerging Filmmakers 2024
Visiting an external academic institution: University of Leeds 2024
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: International symposium, Offscreen Film Festival 2024
Invited talk: Some reprehensible situations: Dario Argento and the giallo 2023
Invited talk: Some Reprehensible Situations: Dario Argento and the giallo. 2023
Invited talk: Keynote presentation - Once and Future Kings:Genre Film Festivals, Fandom and the Festival Circuit 2023
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: International symposium, Kurja Polt Genre Film Festival 2023
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: International symposium, Offscreen Film Festival 2023
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: International symposium, Offscreen Film Festival 2022
Invited talk: ‘Murder, decay and mayhem: Searching for meaning through the madness of Italian genre cinema’ 2021

PGR Supervision

Thomas Ellis The Art of Collecting Fancy Paper: Understanding the Assignment of Values to Collecting Alternative Movie Posters Start Date: 01/03/2015 End Date: 29/06/2021
Michael Guarneri Sanguisughe sexy: Vampires in Italian genre cinema between 1956 and 1975 Start Date: 01/10/2015 End Date: 07/03/2019
Jonathan Mack (Indie)mediality: Intermediality in Contemporary American Independent Film Start Date: 02/10/2012 End Date: 03/10/2016
Sophie Freeman Adaptation to Survive: British Horror Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s Start Date: 21/12/2017 End Date: 07/03/2019

Qualifications

PhD October 01 2006
Cultural Studies MA (Hons) July 31 2005
Politics MA (Hons) July 31 1999
Government BA (Hons) June 30 1998

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