Personal statement

As Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Bath Spa University, Dr. Jamie Steele has over 10 years' experience in research, teaching, and course design, since completing a PhD on a ‘transnational regional’ approach to French-language Belgian cinema. He teaches a range of research-led modules across the Undergraduate programme. He is also the Co-Lead for the ‘Decentred Approaches’ Research Cluster.

He is the author of the book, Francophone Belgian Cinema (2019), published by Edinburgh University Press. He is the editor of the forthcoming ReFocus: The Films of the Dardenne Brothers, set to be published by Edinburgh University Press. Jamie writes about French-language cinema, and he has previously published on François Ozon’s 'Dans la maison', French cinema and political populism, and about film production in French and Belgian cinema.

Jamie has also recently presented conference papers on his forthcoming research projects on cinematic transnationalism and filmmaking in the DRC in the 1960s. In 2023, Jamie was awarded the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum Research Stipend to critically analyse Douglas’ representation of coal-mining communities in Edinburgh.

Since May 2021, Jamie has served as the Prizes Officer for the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF).

Academic qualifications

  • PhD, Film Studies, University of Exeter
  • MA, Film Studies, University of Exeter
  • BA (CH Hons), French and Film Studies, University of Exeter.

Professional memberships

  • Society of French Studies
  • CinEcoSa (Cinéma, Economie & Sociétés Anglophones - Cinema, Economy in English-Speaking Countries).

Areas of expertise 

  • Transnational and National Cinemas
  • French-Language Cinemas.

Teaching subjects

  • Film Noir: The Dark Side of the Screen
  • Introduction to Film
  • Key Movements in World Cinema
  • Film Theory and Criticism: Understanding Hollywood.

Research supervision

I am interested and available to supervise PhD projects in the following research areas:

  • National/ Transnational Cinema
  • French-Language filmmaking
  • European cinema.

Invited talks 

  • "The Kid with a Bike (Dardenne brothers, 2011) – Discussion on Cinema and Child Wellbeing", 28 October 2015, Cinema of Childhood, The Foundling Museum
  • "Introduction to Regarde Jonathan/Jean Louvet, son oeuvre (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 1983)", June 2015, Open City London Documentary Festival, Regents Street Cinema

Papers as invited speaker 

  • "Imag(in)ed Space of the Regions: the creation of a regional cinema aesthetic and identity in the films of the Dardenne brothers and Bouli Lanners", October 2012, University of Oxford, French Department Research Seminar
  • "The Belgian-French connection: exploring the notion of the 'transnational regional' in terms of production, distribution and exhibition", February 2012, University of Leicester, Modern Languages Research Seminar
  • "Blurred boundaries: does a Belgian ‘national’ cinema exist?", October 2011, University of Exeter, Centre for Research into Film Studies

Conference papers

International 

  • "Representing Molenbeek: A transnational approach to Black (Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah, 2015) and Belgian-Moroccan Filmmaking", September 2017, University of the Basque Country, 8th Annual International Conference on Small Cinemas - Diversity in Global Cinemas: Language, Culture and Identity.
  • "Funding the Region: The rise of Wallimage and the impact of inter-regional funding on Cages (Olivier Masset-Depasse, 2006)", November 2014, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris III, Screen Policies in the 21st Century, 5th CinEcoSa conference
  • "Blurred Boundaries: does a Belgian ‘national’ cinema exist?", October 2011, Connecticut State University, Borders and Borderlands conference
  • "Blurred Boundaries: does a Belgian ‘national’ cinema exist?", September 2011, University of Monash, World Cinema Now conference

UK-based

  • "The representation of rural Wallonia in contemporary Belgian cinema", September 2016, University of York, European Screens conference
  • "Screening Wallonia?: The Evolution of Transnational and Regional Film Funding in the francophone regions of Belgium", April 2015, University of the West of England, New Directions in Film and Television Production conference
  • "From documentary to fiction feature films: the shifting social landscape in the works of the Dardenne brothers", September 2013, University of Leicester, Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France annual conference 
  • "Imag(in)ed Space of the Regions: the creation of a regional cinema identity in the works of the Dardenne Brothers and Bouli Lanners", April 2013, University of Warwick, Regions and Regionalism Symposium

Impact

Cinemas of Europe’s Small Nations
November 2016

This event was a month-long film festival held at The Pheonix in Exeter that celebrated filmmaking from Belgium, Scotland, Romania and Wales. Short films, used as exclusive pre-screening premieres, were submitted to the event via Film Freeway. It also included a live interview with filmmaker Simon Miller.

Research and academic outputs

Go to ResearchSPAce