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she/her; ela/dela
Arts Division
Film and Digital Media Department
PhD
MFA
MA
Faculty
Digital Arts and New Media
Lecturer
World Cinema
Experimental Film
Documentary Film
Media Studies
Latin American and Latino Studies
Home Movies and Personal Media
Film Preservation and Film Archiving
Digital Arts
Monday from 12 to 2 pm
Film and Digital Media
Dr. Livia Perez (she/her/ela/dela) is an educator, media scholar, and filmmaker. Her research and moving-image practice span experimental and nonfiction film, narrative forms, and digital media, with particular interests in visual storytelling, feminist and queer moving-image histories, archival practices, visual memory, transnational cinema, and Latin American and diasporic media. She received an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo. Her films have screened at Sundance, Locarno, Havana, IDFA, and Frameline. She is a member of the Red de investigación del Audiovisual hecho por Mujeres en América Latina (RAMA), the research network on audiovisual creation by women in Latin America, and a member of the Brazilian Filmmakers Collective (BRFC).
Documentary Film, Latinx Cinema and Media, Brazilian Cinema, Documentary Studies, Transnational Film, Diasporic Media Studies, Film Archives, Feminist and Queer Media, Film and Media Archives, Media Archeology, Media Literacy.
Documentary, Latin American Cinema, Latinx Media History, Transnational Film, Diasporic Media Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Global Media Studies, Feminist Filmmaking, Feminist Media Practices, Decolonial Theory, Feminist and Queer Historiography, Media Preservation, Film Archives, Media Archeology.
Film History, Film Criticism, Film Production, Documentary Production, Archives and Information, Feminist Film, Latin American Cinema, Brazilian Cinema, Global South Cinemas.
ACADEMIC HONORS
Best Dissertation Award 2023 - Brazilian Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SOCINE)
GRANTS
Unit 18 Non-Senate Faculty Professional Development Grant, 2023-2024 / Graduate Dean's Travel Grant, 2023 / Arts Dean's Fund for Excellence UCSC, 2022 / Huerta Center Graduate Student Grant, 2022 / Quick Grant – Center for Cultural Innovation, 2022 / Graduate Dean's Research Travel Grant, 2022 / Florence French Financial Aid Fund for Art, 2022 / GSR Fellowship, Spring 2022 / CAPES Ph.D. Fellowship (Brazil), 2017-2021 / CAPES Doctoral Research Fellowship for International Research (Brazil), 2020 / Visible Evidence Filmmaker Fellowship, 2018 / MAEC-AECID Fellowship (Spain), 2015 / CAPES MA Fellowship (Brazil), 2014-2016.
FILM AWARDS
Best Documentary Film ("M is for Mothers") 39th Lovers Film Festival, Italy
Best Screenplay ("M is for Mothers") 17º For Rainbow Film FEstival, Brazil
Short Film Special Jury Award ("A Wild Patience has Taken me Here") Sundance Film Festival, US
Nominee Iris Prize LGBTQ+ ("A Wild Patience has Taken me Here"), UK
Best Brazilian Short Film ("A Wild Patience has Taken me Here") Olhar de Cinema Festival, Brazil
Best Short Film ("A Wild Patience has Taken me Here") 32º Oslo/Fusion Film Festival, Norway
Academy Awards Oscar® qualified for Best Short Documentary 2021 ("Carne"), US
Special Mention Locarno Film Festival ("Carne"), Switzerland
Best Animated Short Film Havana Film Festival ("Carne"), Cuba
Best Animated Short Film (Jury Award) Ann Arbor Film Festival ("Carne"), US
Best Short Documentary ("Who Killed Eloá?") 57th GENII Awards, Women in Media Southern California, US
Honorable Mention - MIX Brazil ("Lampiao da Esquina"), Brazil
Best Film IX Encuentro Hispanoamericano De Cine Y Video Documental Independiente ("Who Killed Eloá?"), Mexico
Best Short ("Who Killed Eloá?") ATLANTIDOC, Uruguay
- Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, Finding Norma, Video Installation by Livia Perez, 2023
- Ford Foundation Gallery, Lampiao da Esquina, dir. by Livia Perez
- Frameline Film Festival, M is for Mothers, dir. by Livia Perez, 2023
- Sundance Film Festival, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here dir. by Erica Sarmet, 2022 (as executive producer)
- Havana Film Festival, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here dir. by Erica Sarmet, 2022 (as executive producer)
- New York Times Op-Docs, Carne dir. by Camila Kater, 2020 (as executive producer)
- IDFA,Carne dir. by Camila Kater, 2019 (as executive producer)
- TIFF, Carne dir. by Camila Kater, 2019 (as executive producer)
- Locarno Film Festival, Carne dir. by Camila Kater, 2019 (as executive producer)
- Visible Evidence, Who Killed Eloa? and Lampiao da Esquina, 2018
- LASA, Who Killed Eloa? dir. by Livia Perez, 2016.
- Hot Docs, Who Killed Eloa? dir. by Livia Perez, 2016.
- Alliance for Women in Media - SoCal, Who Killed Eloa? dir. by Livia Perez, 2016
- It's All True, Lampiao da Esquina, dir. by Livia Perez, 2016
- DocsMX, Who Killed Eloa? dir. by Livia Perez, 2016.
- IDFA, Who Killed Eloa? dir. by Livia Perez, 2015.
- Feminist Practices of Encountering Archives Otherwise — Talk and Workshop, Projekt Space, Berlin, Germany, 2026.
- Who Killed Eloá? and M is for Mothers — screening + Q&A, Colgate College, Hamilton, NY, 2025.
- Findings in the Closet: The Film and Video Archives of Norma Bahia Pontes, “Cine-Memoria:” Past and Present in Latin American Cinema Conference, Columbia University, NYC, US, 2024
- Women's Liberation Movement is a Lesbian Plot: the videotapes of Norma Bahia Pontes and Rita Moreira in the early 1970s, Tate Britain Conference, Women in Revolt!: radical acts, contemporary resonances, London, UK, 2024
- Research and film essay as strategies for approaching, preserving, and disseminating the work of Norma Bahia Pontes
SCMS Conference, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Boston, US, 2024 - Findings in the Closet: The Film and Video Archives of Norma Bahia Pontes, Pratt Institute, New York, US, 2024
- Interview with Rita Moreira and Livia Perez, Remake Film Festival, Feminist Elsewhere, Frankfurt, Germany, 2024
- "Restoring Norma Bahia Pontes: Her Legacy from the Modern Brazilian Cinema to the Lesbian Feminist Video in the United States, LASA Congress, Latin America Studies Association, San Francisco, US, 2022
- “The New Brazilian Cinema”. Film Quarterly Webinar, online, 2021
- "LGBTIA+ Resistance in Brazil: From the Military Dictatorship to the Current Reactionary Wave", Brazilian Resistance to the Reactionary Wave Series, University of California, Santa Cruz, online, 2020
- "Media and Performativity", XXV Visible Evidence, University of Indiana, Bloomington, US, 2018
- Resisting erasure by building communities: Signifying, archiving and curating Latin American cinema. Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ), Volume 14, Issue 2, Sep 2025.
- “Findings in the Closet: The Moving-Image Archive of Norma Bahia Pontes.” Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas 20.3, special issue “Guerrilla Archiving: Documents for a Feminist History of Latin American Cinema.” Intellect. (English)
- Encounters with Norma Bahia Pontes - Works, Displacements and Deliriums of a Brazilian Lesbian Feminist Filmmaker, Videomaker and Essayist. Media and Audiovisual Processes Program, University of Sao Paulo, 2022. Doctoral Dissertation. (Portuguese)
- Estrada da Vida (1952) and the Cinematográfica Terras do Brasil: The presence of women in Brazilian cinema in the early 1950s. ANIKI: REVISTA PORTUGUESA DA IMAGEM EM MOVIMENTO. v.9, p.229 - 257, 2022. (Portuguese)
- From Cinema Novo to Lesbian Feminist Video: The Trajectory of Norma Bahia Pontes, REBECA, v.18, jul-dec, 2020. (Portuguese)
- Book Review: Feminino e plural: Mulheres no cinema brasileiro (Female and Plural: Women on Brazilian Cinema), edited by Karla Holanda and Marina Cavalcanti Tedesco; Mulheres atrás das câmeras: As cineastas brasileiras de 1930 a 2018 (Women behind the Camera: Brazilian Filmmakers, 1930–2018), edited by Luiza Lusvarghi and Camila Vieira da Silva and Mulheres de cinema (Women of Cinema), edited by Karla Holanda, Film Quarterly, (2020) 74 (2): 122–125. (English)
FILM 228 - Moving Image Archives and the Frontiers of Information
FILM 194D - Film History Seminar: Esthetics of Resistance in the Global South Cinemas
FILM 168 - National Cinema and Culture: Latin American Cinema
FILM 165B - Race on Screen
FILM 132A - International Cinema 1930 to 1960
FILM 20C - Introduction to Digital Media
DANM 280 - Seminar in Digital Arts and New Media
CROWN 1 - The Ethical and Political Implications of Emerging Technologies
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