Dr Monia Acciari

Job: Associate Professor

Faculty: Computing, Engineering and Media

School/department: Leicester Media School

Research group(s): The Cinema and Television History (CATHI) Institute

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, United Kingdom

T: 0116 201 3993

E: monia.acciari@dmu.ac.uk

W: https://www.dmu.ac.uk

Personal profile

Dr Acciari studied Film Studies at University of Bologna (Italy), where she obtained her BA and a first MA in Film History, working on Federico Fellini’s unpublished radio plays. She obtained a second MA in New Media Management from the European Institute of Design in Milan. Dr Acciari's doctoral research was conducted at the University of Manchester with a fully funded AHRC project entitled “Indo-Italian screens and the Aesthetic of Emotions”.

Her principal research interests lie in the areas of Film and Cultural studies. Her areas of research are: film festivals; Bollywood; new-wave Indian cinema; Transnational cinema and South Asian diasporic cinema; cinema and ethnicity; dubbing and subtitling; international audience studies; film restoration and preservation in India; and cultural theory. Dr Acciari is particularly interested in qualitative research methods, and the use of sociological and ethnographic methodologies as applied to popular culture, in addition to theoretical and archival research.

Dr Acciari is the Associate Director of the UK Asian Film Festival (Leicester), and Principal Investigator of the research and diasporic community engagement project: Building Audiences. Besides being part of several international research networks, she is also a writer for the online magazine Festivalists, where she mostly contributes with articles on Indian cinema and Indian Film Festivals. She is regularly contributing to the magazine Pukaar in Leicester. 

Research group affiliations

The Cinema and Television History (CATH) Research Centre  

Publications and outputs

Journal editor:

  • Monia Acciari and Sarah Barrow (2018), “Disconnections, Omissions, Discontinuities and Absences: the terms of volatility in transnational cinema”, Transnational Cinemas Journal (Forthcoming)
  • Monia Acciari, Hrishikesh Ingle (2019) Film Festivals in South Asia, Journal of South Asian Film and Media, Intellect (Forthcoming)
  • Monia Acciari and Roy Menarini, (2014) Geopolitical Strategies in Film Festival between Activism and Cinephilia, Cinergie Vol. II, no. 6. (http://www.cinergie.it/?p=4901). 

Journal articles: 

  • Monia Acciari (2018-2019), ‘India Film Festivals’ and the rupture of continuity: transnationalism and the subtitling of the new wave Indian cinema in Europe. Transnational Cinemas Journal, Taylor and Francis (Forthcoming).
  • Monia Acciari (2019), The permanency of Film Festivals: archiving the changing India, Journal of South Asian Film and Media, Intellect. (Forthecoming). 
  • Monia Acciari (2018), Bollywood's Variation on the firanginess theme: song-and-dance sequences as heterotopic offbeats. South Asian Popular Culture Journal, Vol.15, Issue 2-3, pp. 173-187.
  • Monia Acciari, Bernhard Fuchs (2019) ‘Bollywood flash mobs as Cultural Transfer: a European Perspectives’, South Asian Popular Culture, Forthcoming.
  • Monia Acciari, (2017) Film festivals as acts of cosmopolitan assemblage: a case study in diasporic cocreation. Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 14, Winter 2017, pp. 111-125.
  • Monia Acciari, (2016), Theorizing Liminal Cinema: Unsettling Cinematic Spaces and Imagining the Transformative Spaces of Italian-Indian Co-Productions, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 4.3, pp. 387-402. 
  • Monia Acciari, (2016), River to River Florence Indian Film Festival: an Upsurge of Affective Spaces, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 4:1, pp. 131-138. (Upon Invitation) 
  • Monia Acciari, (2014), Film Festival and the Rhythm of Social inclusivity: The Fluid spaces of London and Florence Indian Film Festivals, Cinergie Vol. II, no. 6, 2014, pp. 14-25
  • Monia Acciari, (2014), In Conversation with Selvaggia Velo director of River to River Florence Indian Film Festival, in Cinergie Vol. II, no. 6, 2014, pp. 50-53. (Interview) 
  • Monia Acciari, (2014), British Asian Music and its Networks: Notes from a Music-Making Workshop at the Apache Indian Music Academy, Handsworth, UK, South Asian Popular Culture Journal, Issue 12, no. 3, 2014, pp. 1-8. 
  • Monia Acciari, (2014), The Italianization of Bollywood Cinema: ad hoc films, Studies in European Cinema Journal, Volume 11, Issue 1; pp 14-25. 
  • Monia Acciari, (2013), Bollywood Nuances affecting Italian Television, Media Watch Journal, Vol. 4, no. 2; pp. 209-223
  • Monia Acciari, (2012), From Inside a Festival Investigating Cinephilia at the London Indian Film Festival 2012, Cinergie, Vol I, no. 2, pp. 200-212
  • Monia Acciari (2007), Re-writing Shakespeare at the court of a Maharaja, Scritture Migranti: Rivista di scambi Interculturali, vol. 1, n. 1, pp. 1-17

Book chapters:           

  • Monia Acciari (2018), “Film Festivals on New Wave Indian Cinema: Transnational Liminal Hubs” in Tricia Jenkins (ed) The Global Film Festival: From Venice and Cannes to the Digital Age, London: I.B. Tauris
  • Monia Acciari, (2018), Film Festivals as Cosmopolitan Assemblages: A Case Study in Diasporic Cocreation , in (ed.) Devasundaram, Ashvin, (2018) Indian Cinema Beyond Bollywood: The New Independent Cinema Revolution, London: Routledge. (Forthcoming).
  • Monia Acciari, (2015) Harlequin-ing Shah Rukh Khan Through Media ‘Patches’: Composing the Global Image of an Indian Star in the Italian Mediascape, in Shahrukh Khan and Global Bollywood, ed. by Elke Mader, Rajinder Dudrah & Bernhard Fuchs, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 259-279.            
  • Monia Acciari, (2015) Bollywood, The International Encyclopaedia of Human Sexuality, ed. by Rosalie Robertson and Anne Bolin, Wiley-Blackwell, London in Vol. 2, pp. 120-124  (Upon Invitation). 
  • Monia Acciari, (2015), What India? The Many Faces of Indian Cinema, Directory of World Cinema: India, ed. by Adam Bingham, Intellect, London, pp. 106-110. 
  • Monia Acciari, (2015), Aamir Khan, Directory of World Cinema: India, ed. by Adam Bingham, Intellect, London, pp. 135-139. 
  • Monia Acciari, (2010), Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak: L’amor Mortale, Shakespeare in India, ed. by Lidia Curti and Alessandra Marino, Editoria dello Spettacolo, Rome, pp. 60-79.

Book reviews:

  • Monia Acciari, (2013), Sangita Gopal, Conjugations, Marriage and Form in New Bollywood Cinema, South Asian Popular Culture, 2013, Vol. 11, n. 1, pp. 103-104.
  • Monia Acciari, (2012), Zohra Segal, Zohra Segal’s Memoir ‘Close-up: Memoir of a Life on Stage and Screen, Wasafiri, 2012, Vol. 27, n. 2, pp. 90-91.

Film reviews in edited books:

  • Monia Acciari, (2015), My Name is Khan, Directory of World Cinema: India, ed. by Adam Bingham, Intellect, London, pp.139-141.
  • Monia Acciari, (2015), Taare Zameen Par, Directory of World Cinema: India, ed. by Adam Bingham, Intellect, London, pp.142-145.

Key research outputs

  • Monia Acciari (2018-2019), ‘India Film Festivals’ and the rupture of continuity: transnationalism and the subtitling of the new wave Indian cinema in Europe. Transnational Cinemas Journal, Taylor and Francis (Forthcoming).
  • Monia Acciari (2019), The permanency of Film Festivals: archiving the changing India, Journal of South Asian Film and Media, Intellect. (Forthecoming). 
  • Monia Acciari (2018), Bollywood's Variation on the firanginess theme: song-and-dance sequences as heterotopic offbeats. South Asian Popular Culture Journal, Vol.15, Issue 2-3, pp. 173-187.
  • Monia Acciari, (2017) Film festivals as acts of cosmopolitan assemblage: a case study in diasporic cocreation. Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 14, Winter 2017, pp. 111-125.
  • Monia Acciari, (2016), Theorizing Liminal Cinema: Unsettling Cinematic Spaces and Imagining the Transformative Spaces of Italian-Indian Co-Productions, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 4.3, pp. 387-402.
  • Monia Acciari, (2015) Harlequin-ing Shah Rukh Khan Through Media ‘Patches’: Composing the Global Image of an Indian Star in the Italian Mediascape, in Shahrukh Khan and Global Bollywood, ed. by Elke Mader, Rajinder Dudrah & Bernhard Fuchs, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 259-279.  

Research interests/expertise

  • Film Festivals
  • New-wave Indian cinema
  • Global Bollywood cinema
  • Transnational cinema and Cosmopolitanism
  • Film and ethnicity: Representation of foreignness in South Asian cinema (historic and contemporary views)
  • Film Restoration and Preservation
  • Cinema, city and the communities
  • History of European-Indian Co-productions
  • South Asian cinema and European heritage sites (Mapping and Data Visualization)

Areas of teaching

  • Film and New Media
  • Transnational and World Cinema history
  • Audiences and Fandom
  • Indian Cinema
  • Film Festivals
  • Film Restoration and Preservation

Qualifications

BA and MA Film Studies (University of Bologna, Italy)
MA New Media (European Institute of Design, Milan, Italy)
PhD (University of Manchester, UK) 

Courses taught

Introduction to Global Film History (2017- current Module leader)

Film and New Media (2016-2017, Module Leader)

Audiences and Fandom (20116-2017 Seminar Tutor)

Honours and awards

De Montfort University / Square Mile Grant, September 2016, Organisation of the First Leicester Asian Film Festival

De Montfort University/ DMULocal Grant, September 2016, Building Diasporic Audiences (Community Work)

Membership of external committees

Euro-Bollywood Research Network, (BAFTSS)

Transnational Cinema Research Network (BAFTSS)

CoRN Research Network

Film Festival Research Network (FFRN)

Membership of professional associations and societies

British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)

European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS)

Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)

Conference attendance

Invited Talks and Keynotes: 

  • October 2018, Translating Bollywood in Europe: some initial ideas (Keynote speaker), Translation across borders: genre and geographies, Department of English, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad, India, 9th -11th October 2018. 
  • Film Festival as Liminal Sites for Cultural translation, (Keynote Speaker), English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad, India, 7th-8th September 2017. 
  • Nationhood and Diaspora in Bollywood Cinema, Coventry University, Coventry, 14th Feb 2017.
  • Paracosm Presents: In conversation with Nahid Siddiqui and Avaes Mohammad, Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester, 1st December 2016.
  • The ‘Making’ of European heritage within Bollywood cinema. Exploring Europe’s patrimony and art. University of Vienna 28-30 November 2014. 
  • A look at the city of Rome: The ‘Esquilino’ Quarter, UCL Mellon Programme, A Postgraduate Research Day, Moving Borders. The Aesthetics of Migration, 31st March 2008, UCL, London, UK (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mellon-program/events/borders/index.htm#acciar). 
  • Shakespeare at the Court of a Maharaja, Queen Mary University of London, 15th July 2007. 

Conference and Symposium Papers:

  • Euro-Bollywood tourism and film: a film data approach. Screen and Culture Conference, Birmingham City University, 10th July 2018.
  • Euro-Bollywood film data, Workshop: deconstructing the complexity, De Montfort University, 24th November 2017. (BAFFTS Funded Workshop). 
  • Bollywood Flash mobs as Cultural transfer: a European Lens (Monia Acciari and Bernhard Fuchs) SAPC, Birmingham, UK, 27-28 July 2017.
  • Euro-Bollywood and heritage sites. Visual Mapping the Industry. BAFTSS, Bristol, UK, 21st April 2017.
  • Non-Desi doing the Desi: building heterotopic spaces and practices of whiteness in contemporary Bollywood. Sonoma University, California, USA, 7-9 April 2017.
  • Transnational dis-connections: Film festivals in focus – exploring the language of innovation. De Montfort University, 15-16 September 2016.
  • The age of debates: Innovation of festival spaces between musealisation and modernity. The NECS 2016 Conference, Potsdam, Germany, 28-30 July 2016. 
  • Transnational and dialogic borders? Reading co-productions and conceptualizing Liminal Cinema, Borderlines IV- Resisting, Persisting, Performing, De Montfort University, Leicester, 22nd June 2016.
  • From Pink Sarees to powerful screens: notes on the Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival, University of Brighton, Cultures of New India Conference, 30th Jan 2016. 
  • The Socio-Cultural Activism of Film Festivals: The Fluid spaces of London and Florence. The NECS 2014 Conference, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, 19-21 June 2014. 
  • Delhi Belly: a Manifesto or a Scam? Debating the challenges of a newly-flanged Indian Wave, Dependance/Independance: Indian Cinéma, 12th -13th November 2013, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III, Paris, France. 
  • Co-productions Bollywood-Italy: New Perspective, What is New? The Changing Face of Indian Cinema: Contemporary and Historical Contexts, 8th and 9th July 2011, University of Westminster, London, UK, 2011.  
  • Bollywood Italia: Blog(ging) Shah Rukh Khan, International Conference Shah Rukh Khan and Global Bollywood, September 30th – October 2nd 2010, University of Wien, Vienna, Austria. 
  • Jhoom Barabar Jhoom: Worshipping the Star, SALA - South Asian Literary Association Conference, 26th – 27th December 2009, Philadelphia, USA. 
  • Indo-Italian Co-Productions: an Account, Italian Contemporary Cinema Conference: Old and New Tendencies – an International conference, 12th – 14th June 2008, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. 
  • If Cultures Coexist, Can We Hear (and see) Social Justice with Borderless Superimposition of Ethnicities?, SALA - South Asian Literary Association Conference, 26th – 27th December 2007, Chicago, USA. 
  • (Dis)placed Identity and Multi(Media)culturalism: The Representation of South Asians in the Italian Visual culture, Shifting Landscape of Film and Media: Questioning Legacies, Navigating Critique, Istanbul Bilgi University, 8th – 10th September 2007, Istanbul, Turkey. 
  • Be thought-free and Experience the Nirvana: a Cyberpunk Vision of Indi@, Re-Presenting Diaspora in Cinema and New (Digital) Media, 24th – 25th July 2007, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. 
  • A Look at the City of Rome: South Asian Settlements in the ‘Esquilino Quarter, Curious Forum Event, Urbis Museum, 3rd July 2007, Manchester, UK. 
  • Rang de Basanti meets Life is Beautiful: Spaces for New Visual Strategies, Postgraduate Research Encounters, 15th May 2007, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. 
  • Silence Please! An International Vision is about to Start, SALA - South Asian Literary Association Conference, 26th-27th December 2006, Philadelphia, USA. 
  • Curry Culture or ‘Cultural Fusion’? Indian culture in Italy, AHRC funded Conference on Diasporas, Migration and Identities Conference, 13th -14th December 2006, Leeds, UK.

Consultancy work

Associate Director and programming advisor at the LeAFF (Leicester Asian Film Festival) 

Externally funded research grants information

AHRC (OWRI) (PI) £5800 Multilingual Euro-Bollywood: an "imaginative language" project (https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/blog/exploring-multilingualism/creative-multilingualism-owri-funded-projects) (July 2018).

BAFTSS (PI) £250 - Euro-Bollywood (SIG) workshop: Deconstructing the Complexity (July 2017)

MUPI (Co-I) £1000 Cinema Going, Memory and the Diaspora (July 2017).

Internally funded research project information

DMULocal 2018-2019  - £ 5000 UK Asian Film Festival Leicester (Third Edition)

DMULocal 2018 - £ 5000 UK Asian Film Festival Leicester (Second Edition)

DMULocal 2017 - £ 5000 UK Asian Film Festival Leicester (First Edition)

DMU Square Mile India - 2017 £2700, Building Audiences: "Not Quite Bollywood Community Project" (www.buildingaudiences.org.uk).

Professional esteem indicators

Impact Projects:

  • Curated the UK Asian Film Festival - Leicester (along with other external partners)
  • Curated the first event within the Building the Audience Project “Not Quite Bollywood” at the Belgrave Neighbourhood Centre (27th January 2017)
  • Founderof the Belgrave Indian Film Club (January 2019)
  • Restoring India: reimagining borders” DMU Heritage Centre September-October 2017
  • Contributed to the history of cinema-going in the city exhibition at the Leicester’s Heritage Centre, with a panel on Indian Cinemas. October 2016 – May 2017. 

Media Appearance:

Public Lecture:

  • Uk Asian Film festival Inauguration talk (February 2017)
  • Indian Cinema and European Landscape: Filmic Spaces for Cultural Exchanges. 29th February 2016. Cultural Exchanges Festival, Leicester. 
  • Preview the First Leicester Asian Film Festival, 1st March 2017. Cultural Exchanges Festival, Leicester. 

Other academic duties:

Editorial Board for Caesurae: Poetics of Cultural Translation

Conference organization

  • Monia Acciari and Hrishikesh Ingle “Film Festival in South Asia: A dialogic approach (a two-day workshop)”.
    (International collaborative Workshop between De Montfort University and The University of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad India) 7-8  September 2017, Hyderabad, India.

  • Euro-Bollywood (SIG) Workshop: Deconstructing the Complexity, De Montfort University (BAFTSS funded workshop).
  • Transnational Screens Conference: Volatility and Compounding Transnational Traffic, 15-16 September 2016, DMU, Leicester, UK.
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