A filmmaker whose practice delves into the intersections of memory, power, and resistance.
Gills' works navigate histories both personal and collective, often drawing on
marginalized narratives to challenge dominant frameworks.
- Veronika Hanakova, Marienbad Film Festival (2025)
I am a filmmaker, writer on film, educator and sometimes film programmer, with a PhD in Art, Literature and Culture from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid with a dissertation on archival cinema and experimental filmmaking. After several years teaching film at the Universidad de las Artes in Ecuador and following a postdoctoral research position at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Switzerland, I am now Lecturer and researcher on Videographic Criticism at the University of Leeds.
My practice and research focus on critical and experimental forms of archival and media reappropriation and the role that reappropriation plays in rethinking collective histories, including but not limited to film history. How can spectators and communities be empowered by cinema?
FILMMAKING: My recent film and videographic work has been shown in Prismatic Ground, Open City, Cámara Lúcida, Emami Art Experimental Film Festival and Mimesis Documentary Film festival. In 2025 the Marienbad Film Festival (CZ) featured a program dedicated to my videographic and archival work titled "Echoes and Revolutions" which included my most recent film 1922 made entirely of archival materials.
WRITING: My writing on film has been published in Senses of Cinema, Short Film Studies, desistfilm, Kino Slang, La vida útil, La Furia Umana, as well as in catalogues and bonus materials for film festivals including Berlinale, Jeonju, and Locarno. I recently co-edited a double issue of Academic Quarter dedicated to Academic Filmmaking (articles and video essays), co-authored an article on experimental filmmaking as research, and published articles and video essays in the academic journals Short Film Studies, [in]Transition and Tecmerin.
Prior to this, I published a book of interviews with film critics from Latin America (La crítica es una escuela, UArtes Ediciones, 2022) and another one on analogue and experimental film practices in Guayaquil, Ecuador (Guayaquil en ruinas, Guayaquil Analógico, 2023).
CURATING & KEYNOTE: In 2025 I curated a program on archival films from Latin America for Emami Art Experimental Film Festival in India titled "¿Dónde están? Where are they?". In 2024 I gave a keynote lecture on film collectives and my work with Guayaquil Analógico at the Winterthur International Short Film Festival in Switzerland. Prior to this, I served as a guest programmer for Berlin Critics Week in 2023 and for Colombia's National Cinemateca in 2024.
Contact: [email protected]
SHORT-CUT TO RECENT PUBLICATIONS
ON VIDEOGRAPHIC CRITICISM, VIDEO ESSAYS & ACADEMIC FILMMAKING:
Co-Editor with Catherine Grant and Alan O’Leary, Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter, “Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities: Video Essays,” vol. 28, 2024. https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/ak/issue/view/523
Co-Editor with Catherine Grant and Alan O’Leary, Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter, “Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities: Articles,” vol. 27, 2024. https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/ak/issue/view/522
"Aging Faces, Voice, and Barbara Steele's Revenge", [in]Transition 11(3), Special Issue: Women and Aging, ed. Barbara Zecchi, 2024.
Making Video Essays About Alice Diop, The Video Essay Podcast, May 1, 2024.
ON LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA & EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKING:
"Apuntes para una historia del cine amateur en Guayaquil", Cines de pequeña escala: Nuevas estéticas, prácticas y plataformas en la región andina, Eds. Diana Coryat, Christian León and Noah Zweig, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Editorial El Conejo, Quito, 2025: 215-234.
How to Disappear Completely: Cinematic Explorations of Self-Obliteration in Yayoi Kusama's Experimental Film Works , desistfilm, November 29, 2025.
Co-Author with Andrés Dávila and Carlos Terán Vargas. "Professor-artist and professor-researcher: Making the case for experimental filmmaking as research in the academic context of Ecuador's Universidad de las Artes", Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter, “Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities: Articles,” vol. 27, 2024.
“Notes Towards a History of Amateur Filmmaking in Guayaquil”, Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes: New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms, Eds. Diana Coryat, Christian León and Noah Zweig, Springer International Publishing, 2023.
Co-Editor with Martín Baus. Guayaquil en ruinas: Cartografía fílmica de una ciudad, Guayaquil: Guayaquil Analógico/Premio Mariano Aguilera, 2023.
La crítica es una escuela: Conversaciones sobre la crítica de cine en América Latina, Guayaquil: UArtes Ediciones, 2022.
Included in Sabzian's New Book Releases of Autumn 2022. Download book here.
ON RECENT FILMS AND CONTEMPORARY FILMMAKERS:
Locarno 2025: What Do Women Want? Reflections on Women and Desire in Six Films at Locarno Film Festival, desistfilm, August 22nd, 2025.
Locarno 2025: Like the Stars in the Sky: With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari, 2025), desistfilm, August 10th, 2025.
Cinema on the Border: The 20th Annual Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Senses of Cinema, Festival Reports, Issue 114, July 2025.
A Cinema of Reparations: Alice Diop in Conversation with Kevin B. Lee and Libertad Gills, Locarno Film Festival, March 15th, 2024.
Locarno 2024: Listening Films: A Conversation with Courtney Stephens, desistfilm, August 22nd, 2024.
Locarno 2024: Entrevista a Klaudia Reynicke, desistfilm, August 7th, 2024.
EXTERNAL LINKS
Guayaquil Analógico
Rialécticas - Jornadas Cinematográficas de Guayaquil
Fuera de Campo Film Journal
[in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies
My practice and research focus on critical and experimental forms of archival and media reappropriation and the role that reappropriation plays in rethinking collective histories, including but not limited to film history. How can spectators and communities be empowered by cinema?
FILMMAKING: My recent film and videographic work has been shown in Prismatic Ground, Open City, Cámara Lúcida, Emami Art Experimental Film Festival and Mimesis Documentary Film festival. In 2025 the Marienbad Film Festival (CZ) featured a program dedicated to my videographic and archival work titled "Echoes and Revolutions" which included my most recent film 1922 made entirely of archival materials.
WRITING: My writing on film has been published in Senses of Cinema, Short Film Studies, desistfilm, Kino Slang, La vida útil, La Furia Umana, as well as in catalogues and bonus materials for film festivals including Berlinale, Jeonju, and Locarno. I recently co-edited a double issue of Academic Quarter dedicated to Academic Filmmaking (articles and video essays), co-authored an article on experimental filmmaking as research, and published articles and video essays in the academic journals Short Film Studies, [in]Transition and Tecmerin.
Prior to this, I published a book of interviews with film critics from Latin America (La crítica es una escuela, UArtes Ediciones, 2022) and another one on analogue and experimental film practices in Guayaquil, Ecuador (Guayaquil en ruinas, Guayaquil Analógico, 2023).
CURATING & KEYNOTE: In 2025 I curated a program on archival films from Latin America for Emami Art Experimental Film Festival in India titled "¿Dónde están? Where are they?". In 2024 I gave a keynote lecture on film collectives and my work with Guayaquil Analógico at the Winterthur International Short Film Festival in Switzerland. Prior to this, I served as a guest programmer for Berlin Critics Week in 2023 and for Colombia's National Cinemateca in 2024.
Contact: [email protected]
SHORT-CUT TO RECENT PUBLICATIONS
ON VIDEOGRAPHIC CRITICISM, VIDEO ESSAYS & ACADEMIC FILMMAKING:
Co-Editor with Catherine Grant and Alan O’Leary, Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter, “Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities: Video Essays,” vol. 28, 2024. https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/ak/issue/view/523
Co-Editor with Catherine Grant and Alan O’Leary, Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter, “Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities: Articles,” vol. 27, 2024. https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/ak/issue/view/522
"Aging Faces, Voice, and Barbara Steele's Revenge", [in]Transition 11(3), Special Issue: Women and Aging, ed. Barbara Zecchi, 2024.
Making Video Essays About Alice Diop, The Video Essay Podcast, May 1, 2024.
ON LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA & EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKING:
"Apuntes para una historia del cine amateur en Guayaquil", Cines de pequeña escala: Nuevas estéticas, prácticas y plataformas en la región andina, Eds. Diana Coryat, Christian León and Noah Zweig, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Editorial El Conejo, Quito, 2025: 215-234.
How to Disappear Completely: Cinematic Explorations of Self-Obliteration in Yayoi Kusama's Experimental Film Works , desistfilm, November 29, 2025.
Co-Author with Andrés Dávila and Carlos Terán Vargas. "Professor-artist and professor-researcher: Making the case for experimental filmmaking as research in the academic context of Ecuador's Universidad de las Artes", Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter, “Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities: Articles,” vol. 27, 2024.
“Notes Towards a History of Amateur Filmmaking in Guayaquil”, Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes: New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms, Eds. Diana Coryat, Christian León and Noah Zweig, Springer International Publishing, 2023.
Co-Editor with Martín Baus. Guayaquil en ruinas: Cartografía fílmica de una ciudad, Guayaquil: Guayaquil Analógico/Premio Mariano Aguilera, 2023.
La crítica es una escuela: Conversaciones sobre la crítica de cine en América Latina, Guayaquil: UArtes Ediciones, 2022.
Included in Sabzian's New Book Releases of Autumn 2022. Download book here.
ON RECENT FILMS AND CONTEMPORARY FILMMAKERS:
Locarno 2025: What Do Women Want? Reflections on Women and Desire in Six Films at Locarno Film Festival, desistfilm, August 22nd, 2025.
Locarno 2025: Like the Stars in the Sky: With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari, 2025), desistfilm, August 10th, 2025.
Cinema on the Border: The 20th Annual Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Senses of Cinema, Festival Reports, Issue 114, July 2025.
A Cinema of Reparations: Alice Diop in Conversation with Kevin B. Lee and Libertad Gills, Locarno Film Festival, March 15th, 2024.
Locarno 2024: Listening Films: A Conversation with Courtney Stephens, desistfilm, August 22nd, 2024.
Locarno 2024: Entrevista a Klaudia Reynicke, desistfilm, August 7th, 2024.
EXTERNAL LINKS
Guayaquil Analógico
Rialécticas - Jornadas Cinematográficas de Guayaquil
Fuera de Campo Film Journal
[in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies