Presented by the Centre for Cinema Studies and Cinema Thinks the World, the Critical Thinkers Series features research talks by notable and emerging scholars in Cinema and Media Studies. Join us for the next talk in the Spring 2026 Series by Dr. Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Matsumoto Toshio’s Antifascist Film-Philosophy
This talk analyzes the film and philosophy of Matsumoto Toshio, avant-garde documentary filmmaker best known for the queer, kaleidoscopic Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) and a series of “neo-documentary” films from the early-mid 1960s. Specifically, it looks at his work through the overarching lens of antifascism. I argue that his writings describe avant-garde documentary as a privileged art form, uniquely capable of battling against everyday fascist ideology—both fascism in the streets, and in our mindset and everyday behaviour.
About Julia Alekseyeva
Julia Alekseyeva is an Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches interactions between global media and radical leftist politics, with a particular focus on Japan, France, and the former Soviet Union. Prof. Alekseyeva’s first academic book, Antifascism and the Avant-Garde: Radical Documentary in the 1960s (UC Press), was published in February 2025. Prof. Alekseyeva is also author-illustrator of the award-winning graphic memoir Soviet Daughter (Microcosm, 2017). She has published several articles on film, art, and politics in Film History, The Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, ARTMargins, The Nib, The Sixties, Jewish Currents, and elsewhere. Most recently, she published a translation of an article by antifascist documentary filmmaker Matsumoto Toshio in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (JCMS). Prof. Alekseyeva is also the guest editor of three forthcoming issues for Arts, JCMS, and The Journal of Japanese and Korean Studies.
This event is free and there is no need to RSVP.