As a graduate student at UCLA in the 1990s, I won 2 years of PhD research in the BnF to undertake research on Sarah Bernhardt and early film. At that time (1997-1999), there were few people (well, no one) researching silent film in the libraries of Paris. I recall being allowed to photocopy just 10 pages a day at the...

Screening the stage: Actresses and acting in France from Theatre to Silent Cinema

This was my first time to mainland China (as a Hong Kong resident, I never actually visited China pre 1997....). AND it was the first time the Women and Silent Screen conference made it to Asia. I am so proud of this- on the heels of the Melbourne iteration of the conference that I organised and hosted, I was able...

In 2017 I won a Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment from the University of Texas at Austin.

"I never thought...that I would ever be a film, but now that I am two whole reels of pictures I rely for my immortality upon these records."

Stephanie Alexander (left) and Virginia , speaking on the panel 'Feminist Forum'

Professor Jill Matthews, ANU, writing fort the Women and Film History International Network

I first visited Bologna as a non-Italian speaking tourist in 1992. I was subsequently based there for many years, first attending Cinema Ritrovato when it was still a relatively small event in 1993. When by 2005 I both spoke Italian and proposed a program including Sarah Bernhardt to Gian Luca Farinelli, I was not sure he would agree to...