Staff Profile
Dr Raisa Sidenova
Lecturer in Film Theory
Background
Raisa is a Lecturer in Film Theory at Film at Culture Lab. Her research focuses on history and theory of non-fiction film, film history and historiography, cinemas of the Soviet republics, world cinema post-1945, and Russian and Soviet cinema. She’s currently at work on her first monograph, “Pravda to Vérité: Soviet Documentary between Stalinism and Perestroika,” which is based on her Ph.D. and explores how Soviet documentary practice transformed with the changes in the mediascape, Soviet film industry and the public sphere from the end of World War II to the Gorbachev reforms of the late 1980s.
Raisa joined the Department of Media, Culture, Heritage in 2017 after completing her Ph.D. in the joint programme in Film and Media Studies and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. She also holds an M.A. in American Studies from Lehigh University which she attended as a Fulbright scholar. Raisa did her undergraduate studies in Journalism at Moscow State University. She previously taught at University College London.
Research
Raisa's main research areas are:
- Theory and history of documentary film and television
- Film theory (theories of realism in particular)
- History of film theories
- Film history and historiography
- Comparative media studies
- World cinema (post-1945)
- Soviet and Russian film and culture
- Cinemas of Soviet republics (Baltic and Central Asian studios)
- Eastern European cinema (Polish and Czechoslovak “New Waves”)
Raisa is interested supervising Ph.D. projects in any of these areas.
Teaching
Currently Raisa is teaching MCH2000 and MCH2001: Film Theory for Practice and is a module leader on MCH1038: Introduction to Documentary.
Publications
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Book Chapters
- Sidenova R. . In: Shpolberg M; Kostina A, ed. The New Russian Documentary: Reclaiming Reality in the Age of Authoritarianism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2025, pp.215-229.
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Reviews
- Sidenova R. . KinoKultura 2017, 56.
- Sidenova R. . KinoKultura 2016, 54.
- Sidenova R. . KinoKultura 2013, 42.