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Christine Mladic Janney is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and media anthropologist. She has been an ACLS Leading Edge Fellow, a Fulbright Research Grant awardee, and a recipient of the Award of the Festival Director at the ETNOFILM Festival. She holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology and an Advanced Certificate in Culture and Media from New York University, and completed documentary film training at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. 

She is currently in production on a documentary about the early years of the career of Nora de Izcue, one of Peru’s first women filmmakers. It reveals the challenges De Izcue faced making social justice documentaries during a revolutionary era, the impact she had on the development of filmmakers from throughout Latin America, and the search for the lost originals of one of her (previously banned) films. Christine is also in post-production on Kutimpushani, a short documentary about a Peruvian immigrant traveling from the US to the highland village of her childhood to see if the stigma around Quechua language still persists today.

As an ACLS Leading Edge Fellow, Christine… media report about alternatives to immigration detention, global research report about communications in detention, 

In 2014, she released Runasimiwan Kawsay (Living Quechua), a short documentary about Peruvian language activist Elva Ambía’s efforts to keep Quechua alive in New York City. It premiered at the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival in NYC, and went on to screen at over 30 film festivals and community events around the world as part of a robust social impact program.  Runasimiwan Kawsay won the Award of the Festival Director at the 19th International Film Festival ETNOFILM Čadca (Slovakia) in 2016. Educational institutions and organizations can access the documentary through Third World Newsreel; personal licenses may be inquired about here.

Along with Dr. Juan Carlos Belón Lemoine and Ros Postigo, Christine is co-founder of CIEFO,  an organization based in Arequipa, Perú that is dedicated to the investigation, conservation, and dissemination of photographic archives and their contents. In 2021, the group curated the trilingual (Quechua, Spanish, and English) virtual photography exhibition La Otra Ribera as part of Peru’s bicentennial celebrations. The exhibition looks at…  She also co-curated the photography exhibition __ with Ros Postigo in ___ at the Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in Lima, Perú.

Christine is also a Southern Peruvian Quechua language scholar, and is committed to creating materials and content in Quechua and Kichwa languages. In 2018, she co-authored a trilingual Quechua-Spanish-English Dictionary, along with Dr. Odi Gonzales and Emily Thompson, for Hippocrene Books. She founded Rimasun, a Quechua language podcast program involving both NYU Quechua language students and Quechua-speaking members of the broader NYC community. She also works with language activists in South America to create materials in Quechua.

Here, talk about fieldwork, qualitative research, 16 months living in Peru

Christine’s dissertation research focused on photographic archives, digital photography, and race and indigeneity in Arequipa, Perú.  Additional academic writing is forthcoming in the Visual Anthropology Review.

She is currently based in Chicago, Illinois and teaches media anthropology and Latin American Studies courses at DePaul University.

Festivals and Screenings

2017 Viscult Film Festival of Visual Culture, Joensuu, Finland

2017 6th Cine Kurumin: Indigenous International Film Festival, Salvador, Brasil

2016 International Film Festival ETNOFILM Čadca, Slovakia (award winner)

2016 Culture Unplugged Film Festival, online

2016 Intro to Documentary Class, Centro Cultural Peruano-Norteamericano, Arequipa, Peru

2016 Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival, Göttingen, Germany

2016 University of Pennsylvania Community Screening, Philadelphia, PA

2015 FICWALLMAPU, Festival Internacional de Cine Indígena de Wallmapu, Temuco, Wallmapu (Chile)

2015 DOCUPERU Film Festival, Lima, Peru

2015 International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia

2015 Festival Internacional del Cortometraje, Buenos Aires, Argentina

2015 Anthropology Student Conference at la UNSA, Arequipa, Peru

2015 Cine + Más San Francisco Latino Film Festival, San Francisco, CA

2015 La Peña Cultural Center, Community Screening, San Francisco, CA

2015 Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Community Screening, Ljubljana, Slovenia

2015 Aboriginal Pavilion of the Pan-American Games, Toronto, Canada

2015 Balboa Park Centennial Celebration, San Diego, CA

2015 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington DC

2015 Centro Latino Community Screening, Krakow, Poland

2015 Screening, Paterson, NJ

2015 A Transnational Journey through Quechua Languages and Cultures, Community

2015 The Americas Film Festival of New York, New York, NY

2015 EthnoCineca Ethnographic and Documentary FilmFest, Vienna, Austria

2015 Chicago Latino Film Festival, Chicago, IL

2015 San Diego Latino Film Festival, San Diego, CA

2015 May Sumak: Quichwa Film Showcase, New York, NY

2015 Ossining High School Community Screening, Queens, NY

2015 Women in Film and Television Immigrant Voices Screening, Queens, NY

2015 The Town School Diversity Film Festival, Elementary School Screening, New York, NY

2015 Antropofest Film Festival, Prague, Czech Republic

2014 Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, Washington DC

2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York, NY, USA

Selected Presentations

2019 “Interdisciplinary, Transnational, and Intersectional: Strategies of Quichwa Language Activism in the US.” Rutgers Indigenous Languages Colloquium, New Brunswick, NJ. Nov 14-15.

2018 “La propagación de la fotografía en Arequipa después de 1930.” VIII Congreso Nacional De Historia Del Perú, Arequipa, Perú. August 7-9.

2018 “Las políticas de la “archivización” fotográfica: El caso del Archivo Glave, Arequipa.” II Encuentro de Archivos Fotográficos, Lima, Perú. May 25-27.

2017 “From Collections to Archives: Family Heirlooms, Photographic Patrimony, and the Politics of Nostalgia in Arequipa, Peru.” American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC. November 29-December 3.

2017 “Quichwa-Tech: Exploring How Digital Technologies Can Help Strengthen Quichwa Languages.” Quechua Student Alliance Meeting, New York, NY. November 11.

2017 “From Wititi to the Jardín del Colca: Visual media and the politics of inclusion in the Arequipeñan social imaginary.” InDigital Latin America II Conference, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. March 16-18.

2016 “El estudio histórico y antropológico de la fotografía: Una primera mirada al archivo del Estudio Fotográfico Glave.” II Seminario: aportes para historia de Arequipa. Peru. November 11-12.

Awards

Leading Edge Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies. 2021         

Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, NYU. 2018-2019   

Public Humanities Fellowship, Humanities New York. 2017-2018   

Fulbright US Student Program Award, Institute of International Education. 2015-2016   

Award of the Festival Director, ETNOfilm Festival. 2014       

CLACS Summer Field Research Grant, NYU. 2013       

Henry M. MacCracken Fellowship for Graduate Study, NYU. 2012-2017   

Year-long Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Quechua), NYU. 2009-2010   

Summer Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Quechua), NYU. 2009       

Year-long Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Quechua), NYU. 2008-2009    

Publications

Forthcoming, 2022    “A Conversation with Filmmaker Nora de Izcue: Runan Caycu, New Latin American Cinema, and the Peruvian Documentary Tradition.” Visual Anthropology Review.

2018 Gonzales, Odi, Christine Mladic, Emily Thompson. Trilingual Quechua-Spanish-English Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene Books.

2017 Review of Let There Be Light, dir. Anna Wilking (52 min. Ecuador, 2013). American Anthropologist 119(2): 366-368.

Education

Ph.D. Anthropology, New York University, September 2020

    Dissertation: Reframing Belonging: Digital Photography, Archives, and Mobility in Southern Peru

    Committee: Faye Ginsburg (chair), Bambi Schieffelin, Fred Myers, Deborah Poole, Patricia Spyer

M.Phil. Anthropology, New York University, 2016

M.A. Latin American and Caribbean Studies, New York University, 2010

B.F.A. Photography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003

B.A. English Literature, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003

Certifications

2016 Certificate in Photographic Conservation, Centro de la Imagen, Peru

2015 Advanced Certificate in Culture and Media, New York University

2009 Quechua Language and Culture Certificate, Centro Tinku, Peru

Filmography

Nora de Izcue [working title]. In production.

Kutimpushani [working title]. In post-production.

Runasimiwan Kawsay (Living Quechua). 2014

Amaya Kany. 2013

Projects

“Centro de Investigación y Estudios para la Fotografía” (Center for Photographic Research and Training), Co-founder of organization in Arequipa city, Perú. 2020-present   

“Digital Quichwa,” Audio Recordings of Rights-related Information in Quichwa Languages, Creator and Producer, Humanities New York. 2017-2018   

“May Sumak!: Quichwa Film Showcase,” Co-creator/curator, NYU. 2015         

“Rimasun,” Quechua Podcast Program, Creator and Producer, NYU. 2012-2017   

“Quechua Collective of New York,” Co-Founding member of organization. 2012-2017   

“Runasimi Outreach Committee,” Founding member of group, CLACS, NYU. 2010-2017

Curation

“La Otra Ribera: Photography, Nation and Mestizaje in the early 20th century Arequipa, Peru,” Co-curator of virtual permanent photography exhibition in celebration of Peru’s bicentennial, Universidad Católica San Pablo, Peru. 2021   

“A First Look at the Archive Glave-Alcázar,” Co-curator of inaugural photography exhibition of the Glave-Alcázar photography archive, Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso, Lima, Perú. 2019   

Courses Taught

Struggle and Resistance in Latin America

Latin American Photography Worlds 

Founding Myths and Cultural Conquest in Latin America

Anthropology of Photography

Ethnographic Film

Video Production

Anthropology of Language

Human Societies and Cultures

Cultures and Contexts: Spain

Teaching experience at DePaul University, Columbia College Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, New York University

Languages

English, Native Fluency

Spanish, Near Native Fluency

Quechua (Southern Peruvian), Intermediate Fluency