Cristina Cabral

Cristina is a Doctoral Researcher, and a Diversity and the Media Lecturer with extensive experience in the media field, and research methods.

She is passionate about Diversity and Inclusion, and loves to create engaging content that challenges the negative stereotypes of marginalised groups portrayed in the mainstream media and the Film Industry. She genuinely believes in the power of representation and  empowers her students to use their voices, share their stories, and create impactful and creative work that represents their cultural background.

She is a third-year PhD Researcher at SOAS in the Cultural Industries programme producing innovative series of documentaries Exploring activism around Blackness in Children’s Cultural Industries in the UK.

As a Doctoral Researcher, Cristina is currently producing a practice-led PhD, where she can incorporate innovative Visual Methods and filmmaking as a weapon to decolonise screen studies. As a filmmaker, Cristina produced and directed the award-winning documentary "I am Creola", about her first travel to Cape Verde with her children, a story of identity and cultural heritage. Cristina also directed the documentary, "Where Are the Brown Dolls", an autoethnographic investigative film about the lack of representation of Black Dolls in UK Toy Shops.

After releasing this documentary and obtaining a Master's in Diversity and the Media, Cristina was invited to numerous seminars and workshops worldwide in institutions such as Imperial College, LSE, and the University of Lagos. Cristina is also a Multimedia Journalist and a Diversity and Media Lecturer. In her teaching, she raises awareness for the need to see people for their uniqueness and uses an intersectional approach to decolonise the current visual methods. 

Cristina is also the Co-Founder of Black Europeans, an anti-racist organisation that fights systemic racism. She is also a Research Assistant and Multimedia Content Producer at Kings College London, creating engaging videos and multimedia content for the African Hub for Sustainable Creative Economies project.

She is also the editor of the podcast Africa Fashion Futures and edited a series of fascinating episodes, such as Africa Fashion Week with Queen Ronke Ademiluyi–Ogunwusi. Cristina is originally from the Cape Verde Islands and is passionate about  Filmmaking, Lusophony Studies, and Social Justice.

She started her media career when she moved from Lisbon to the USA. She worked as a financial reporter on Wall Street in New York and studied documentary in the 21st century at the School of Visual Arts in New York.