Professor Lindiwe Dovey

Lindiwe Dovey is Professor of Film and Screen Studies at SOAS University of London, which she joined in September 2007 as a lecturer. From 2023-2025 she is also the College of Humanities Deputy Dean (Research and Knowledge Exchange) and the Chair of the SOAS Research Culture Committee.

She is a researcher, teacher, filmmaker, and film curator, and her work aims to combine film scholarship and practice in mutually enlightening ways. From 2019 to 2025, she is the Principal Investigator of the project "African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies", which is funded by a European Research Council grant.

As a filmmaker, Lindiwe has recently completed directing two documentary films: 'Out of the Box: The Screen Worlds of Judy Kibinge' (2023) and 'From One Woman to Another: The Screen Worlds of Bongiwe Selane' (2023). These films were nominated for Best Educational Film at the 2023 Learning on Screen Awards in the UK, and are currently being screened at festivals, events, and universities around the world; in 2025 they will be made freely available on the Screen Worlds website. They explore the work of two of Africa's leading filmmakers, and are examples of Lindiwe's passion for practice research, and are complemented by her current written research on women filmmakers, feminist filmmaking, and ethical leadership.

In the past Lindiwe has made film adaptations of literature (for example, of Olive Schreiner and Vladimir Nabokov’s writing), and film adaptation and cultural appropriation are also topics she has reflected on in depth in her scholarly work – for example, in her first book, 'African Film and Literature' (Columbia UP, 2009), as well as in numerous journal articles and book chapters.

As a film festival founder, director and curator, Lindiwe has been instrumental in raising the profile and visibility of African film in the UK. She is the Co-Founder of Film Africa, for which she was also the Co-Director and the Film Programme Director in 2011 and 2012, and remains on the Advisory Board; and she co-founded the Cambridge African Film Festival, which she directed and curated for many years. With colleagues Lindiwe has also co-curated film seasons exploring the similarities and differences between film cultures and industries in different parts of the world, such as Gender Agenda! and Mixed Roots. In her scholarly work she has combined in-depth research into the exhibition, circulation, and curation of film with reflections on her own experiences of founding, directing, and curating film festivals, most notably in her book 'Curating Africa in the Age of Film Festivals' (Palgrave, 2015), and in articles in journals such as Screen, Cinema Journal, Scope, Jump Cut, Journal of African Cultural Studies, and Feminist Africa.

Lindiwe was born in South Africa, and moved seven times between South Africa and Australia as a child. She then won scholarships to study at Harvard University, where she graduated with a BA Honors in 2001 (with highest honors in Film Theory and Production, and English Literature), and at the University of Cambridge, where she graduated with a PhD in 2005 (in African Cinema and Literature). She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2010 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award, the 2011 SOAS Director's Teaching Prize, and a 2011 Philip Leverhulme Prize for outstanding scholarship. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and was a keynote speaker for the Aurora Women’s Leadership Development programme in 2022 and 2023.

You can find out more about Lindiwe and her work at her website Lindiwe Dovey. Her publications can be accessed through SOAS Research Online.