Professor Steven Eastwood, BA, PhD

Profile

I am an artist-filmmaker, working in both the cinema and gallery, often using participatory and co-creation methods, and involving collaborations with professionals and individuals in the fields of autism, palliative care. neurology, psychology, medicine. I have established an international reputation in these areas: film in the context of end of life; film and neurodivergence; fact-fiction hybridity. I have been the recipient of numerous awards and commissions including Wellcome Trust, BFI, Film London FLAMIN, Arts Council, AHRC, National Lottery.

My most recent feature The Stimming Pool (2024) was co-created with The Neurocultures Collective and premiered at CPH:DOX, before embarking on a world film festival tour including the 68th BFI London Film Festival. The Stimming Pool will be released in UK cinemas in 2025. My second feature ISLAND premiered at the 61st BFI London Film Festival 2017 before travelling to IFFR 2018 and other international festivals, and had a UK theatrical release that year. The film is available on streaming platforms, and has an accompanying educational toolkit that is licensed by NHS Trusts in the training of doctors and nurses. My first feature Buried Land (2010) was officially selected for Tribeca, Moscow, Mumbai film festivals. Multiscreen exhibitions include STIM CINEMA (2023); The Interval and the Instant (2017); The Hiss of the Blow (2009). My documentary Those Who Are Jesus (2001) was nominated for a Grierson Award.

I am Professor of Film Practice at QMUL, Head of Film Practice, and the Project lead / academic lead for BLOC, a practice-research arts complex comprising fully accessible 4K Dolby Atmos cinema, multiscreen gallery, production studios and post-production suites. Lead on PhD by film practice. I am a co-founder of the QMUL Centre for Film & Ethics, and have previously convened the MA in Documentary Practice. Prior to joining QM, I was the director of the Moving Image Research Centre and Reader in Film at the University of East London, and an Assistant Professor in film at SUNY Buffalo. I have convened a number of symposia and screenings to do with cinema and artists’ moving image, and have published widely. I co-founded the arts laboratory event OMSK (1995-2008), a London based collective of artists creating site specific and cross-disciplinary events. I have been a trustee of the Stuart Croft Foundation since 2015. I gained a theory-practice PhD through UCL, The Slade in 2007.

Teaching

Cinema and Disability, the first module of its kind in the UK, open to Film and Medical students.

Creative Producing, an innovative skills module focused on the legal, contractual and operational side of producing film

Forms of Film Practice, a studio-based, process driven experimental film class encompassing single and multiscreen production.

The Performative Documentary, an MA module encouraging students to be creative with nonfiction formats.

Research

Research Interests:

• Fact-Fiction hybrid filmmaking
• Documentary
• Fiction
• Autism & Neurodiversity
• Intensive Care and Palliative Care
• Death and Dying
• Film and Ethics
• Artists’ moving image
• Multiscreen Installation
• Underground & DIY cinema
• Live Art

Publications

Ongoing and recent projects

Autism Through Cinema (2018-2022) brings together autism and cinema in the belief that they hold insights for each other hereto unexplored. The link between them is the body and more specifically body language. Film practice will be used to elucidate the potential of autism to expand understandings of bodily conduct and communication. The project will also involve working with autistic individuals to develop an alternative film language inclusive of the neurodiverse population.

ISLAND (90.00, 2017) is a ground-breaking feature-length documentary, the result of 12-months filming, during which time I worked closely with persons nearing the end of life, in partnership with Mountbatten Hospice on the Isle of Wight. The film has been identified as a game-changer in terms of breaking taboo and giving new and vital visibility to death and dying.

The Interval and the Instant (2017) is a multiscreen video installation directly addressing the act of dying and end-of-life care. The artwork, which was first exhibited at Fabrica Brighton, has at its centre a longform triptych loop inviting the viewer to be witness to intimate events including the moment of death. The wider visual language allows the viewer to reflect on the passage of time, relationships and one’s own place in the world.

OMSK Moving Image Archive is a substantial resource consisting of approx 250 hours of captured artists’ moving image and documentation of fifty live events produced by the OMSK Artists’ Collective (1996-2008), which I co-founded. The archive features film, sound and live art from London’s counter culture.

Select Films and installations

Buried Land (Steven Eastwood & Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, HD. 81:00. 2010) Funding from the AHRC and the Princess Grace Foundation. Tribeca, Moscow, Sarajevo, Mumbai, Gothenburg International and East End Film Festivals 

The Hiss of the Blow (S16mm/HD. 17.40 loop. 2009) Multi-screen installation commissioned for Jerwood Encounters ‘Laboratory’ exhibition, Jerwood Space Gallery, London, 29 July-31 August 2009

Save It (HD. 1:00. 2014) part of The Film That Buys The Cinema portmanteau

In Transit (2010-13) Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Project Art Works commission 


Seminar in Film Sound (16mm. 11.07 looped. 2007)


Hearsay (DV. 9:00. 2006.) For Tank TV DVD publication

Like a House on Fire (16mm/DV. 16:00. 2006.)

The Film We Didn't Make (16mm/DV. 25:00. 2005)


The Film (16mm/DV. 28:00. 2004)

Those Who Are Jesus (56:00. 2001) Nominated for best documentary newcomer, Grierson Award 2002.

Select articles and book chapters 

‘Cinemautism’, in Screen Bodies, ed. by Brian Keith Bergen-Aurand (Berghahn Books, 2016) 

‘The interval and the instant: Inscribing death and dying’, Moving Image Review and Art Journal MIRAJ, 5:1-2, 2016 

‘Buried Land: Filming the Bosnian Pyramids’ in Screening Nature: Cinema beyond the Human, ed. by A. Pick and G. Narraway (Berghahn Books, 2013)

‘Powers of the False’, Moving Image Review and Art Journal MIRAJ, 1:2, 2012

‘The Film to Come’, in Cinematic Folds: the Furling and Unfurling of Images. ed. by Firoza Elavia (Pleasure Dome Press, 2009)

‘The Film is in Front of Us’ in Telling Stories: Visual Practices, Theories and Narrative, ed. by Jane Tormley and Gillian Whiteley (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009)

Select screenings and exhibitions

Buried Land (Steven Eastwood & Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, HD. 81:00. 2010),Tribeca Film Festival (2010), Moscow Film Festival (2010), Sarajevo Film Festival (2010), Mumbai Film Festival (2010), Gothenburg International Film Festival (2011), East End Film Festival (2011)

Of Camera, Artists Vs Hollywood, group show, QUT Gallery, Queensland, Australia and Globe Gallery Newcastle, 2008-9

Seminar in Film Sound group show, KK Projects Gallery New Orleans, 2008

Seminar in Film Sound group show, ‘A Walk Through’ at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London, 2007

Like a House on Fire, Trace Exhibition, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich

Like a House on Fire, installation/screening, Open Video Projects, Rome screening/artists' talk, 1:1 Gallery, Rome, 2006

The Film! The Film! The Film!, Cinemaniac group show, MM Luka Gallery, Pula, Croatia, 2005

Come As You Are, installation, Killing Time, CCA, Oslo, Norway, 2005

Grants and awards

2015 Arts Council England for The Interval and the Instant

Big Lottery for The Interval and the Instant

2014 University of East London research grant, for OMSK Archive research internship phase 2

2013 University of East London research grant, for The Sally-Anne Test

University of East London research grant, for OMSK Archive research internship phase 1

2012 Arts Council England / Fabrica Gallery for End of Life exhibition


Paul Hamlyn Foundation / Project Art Works, for In Transit


MeCCsa, for Powers of the False symposium


University of East London research grant, for Powers of the False symposium

2011 University of East London, sabbatical research leave


2010 Paul Hamlyn Foundation / Project Art Works, for In Transit


2008 AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK) for Buried Land

2007 PGF (Princess Grace Foundation) for Buried Land


2006 Arts Council Grants for the Arts, for OMSKBOOK


2004 Arts Council Grants for the Arts, for The Film


2002 Tower Hamlets Film Fund, for Of Camera

University of Plymouth, research fund, for Of Camera

2001 London Arts, for Cinema into the Real, Test 1, and ATOMSK

2000 Arts Council, for ATOMSK

Peabody Foundation, for Those Who Are Jesus

University of Plymouth, research fund, for Those Who Are Jesus

1997 Arts Council, for Approaches to Autism

Supervision

Current and previous PhD supervision

Henry Bradley, Scenario Capitalism: and experiments in a new Community Simulation Space (2024 -);

Loveday Charlotte Leah Quarry, Documenting Male Mental Health: How documentaries about male mental health can reduce stigma and help develop a male model of mental health (2024 -);

Katharine Round, Manifesting Solitude: invisible personal narratives of confinement, power and violence in the contemporary US prison industrial complex (2024 -);  

Maia Conran, Tactics and Hacking: How Artists Can Intervene in the Infrastructures of Film Studios (2014-2024);

Vicki Thornton, Remediating the Past: Documentary Film, Artists’ Moving Image and the Decolonisation of Ukraine’s Politics of Memory (2016-2024); 

Alex Widdowson, Animated Documentary: Ethics through the Neurodiversity Paradigm (2019-2023).

PhD External Examining (Practice-based)

Ilona Sagar, RCA (2023);  Carla Mckinnon, Bournemouth (2022); Michael Holly, Cork (2022); Raul Alvarez, Plymouth (2021); Peter Gomes, Westminster (2020) Rachel Gomme, QMU; Robert Rappaport, Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University (2014); Emily McMehen, Goldsmiths College (2013).

Programme External Examiner

MRes Creative Practice, University of Westminster, 2018-2022

MA Contemporary Film Practice, University of Plymouth, 2010-2014.

Performance

Feature Films:

2024   

The Stimming Pool (Dir. Steven Eastwood. 70:00. Co-created with The Neurocultures Collective. 2024) funded by Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, Film London FLAMIN.

World premiere CPH:DOX. UK premiere 68th BFI London Film Festival. Other international festivals include: Camden (USA); DOXA (Can); Popolli, Winner, Youth Jury Award (Florence); IceDocs, Winner, Best Documentary (Iceland); Cork; Cambridge; Leeds; Folkestone; RIDM (Montreal); DMZ (South Korea); Melbourne (Aus); Sydney (Aus); Verizo (Hungary). UK theatrical release scheduled March 2025. Produced by Whalebone Films; distributed by Dartmouth Films.

2018   

ISLAND (Dir. Steven Eastwood. 90:00. 2018)

Feature length artists’ film, funded by Arts Council England, National Lottery, and Fabrica. International premiere Rotterdam Film Festival. World premiere 61^st BFI London Film Festival. UK theatrical release Sep-Dec 2018. BIFA nominee, Best Documentary. Available on streaming platforms.

2010   

Buried Land (Dir. Steven Eastwood. 81:00. 2010)

Feature film, fact-fiction hybrid, Official selection Tribeca Film Festival, world tour Moscow, Sarajevo, Mumbai, Gothenburg International FF, released on VOD by E1 Entertainment.

2001   

Those Who Are Jesus (Dir. Steven Eastwood. 56:00. 2001).

Best Newcomer nominee, Grierson Awards 2002.

Recent Gallery Exhibitions

2023   

STIM CINEMA (18:00 loop. Co-created with The Neurocultures Collective, multiscreen video and mixed media installation.

Eexhibited at Nottingham Castle and Art Gallery (Nov 2023-April 2024, attendance 100,000); Grundy Gallery Blackpool (Sept-Dec 2024, attendance 2,500);

2017-19          

The Interval and the Instant. (49:00 loop), multiscreen video installation, exhibited at Fabrica, Brighton’s Centre for Contemporary Art (Oct-Nov 2017, attendance 5,000); Blackwood Gallery, Toronto (Feb-March 2018, attendance 1,000); La Ferme du Buisson Paris (March-July 2019, attendance 3,000). Exhibition featured in Artists Newsletter, FAD, The Guardian; Exhibition transfer to Blackwood Gallery Toronto Feb-March 2018, as part of Take Care exhibition series.

Grants, Commissions, Research Funding Awarded (selected)

• 2024 STIM CINEMA gallery tour commission, Grundy Art Gallery;
• 2023 QMUL impact accelerator award, for The Stimming Pool; QMUL participatory research award, for The Stimming Pool; Nottingham Castle and Art Gallery gallery tour commission for STIM CINEMA; Film London FLAMIN scheme for STIM CINEMA;
• 2022 Arts Council England award for STIM CINEMA;
• 2021 Wellcome Trust public engagement award for Autism Through Cinema (with Prof. Janet Harbord))
• 2021 UKRI bid awarded for QMUL BLOC Cinema Laboratory;
•  
• 2018 Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award for Autism Through Cinema, (with Prof. Janet Harbord);
• 2017-18 QMUL impact award for ISLAND; Collaborator Award QMUL for ISLAND;
• 2017 Fabrica commission for The Interval and the Instant;
• 2015 Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts, The Interval and the Instant; Big Lottery, for The Interval and the Instant;
• 2015-16 QMUL strategic research bid for Film Practice;

2008 AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) for Buried Land; PGF (Princess Grace Foundation) for Buried Land, with Geoffrey Alan Rhodes.

Scholarly Contributions

Special Awards, Honours and Distinctions (selected)

The Stimming Pool, Festival dei Popoli, Winner Youth Jury Award (2024)

The Stimming Pool, IceDocs Iceland, Winner Best Documentary (2024)

ISLAND, Winner Belfast Film Festival Maysles Brothers Award (2019);

ISLAND, BIFA nominee Best Documentary (2018);

ISLAND, Winner QMUL Impact Award (2018);

Those Who Are Jesus, Grierson Best Newcomer nominee (2002).

REF Impact case studies, impact and public engagement activity,  socially engaged projects

• ICS REF 2021 (UOA 33B),Increasing public and professional understanding of death, dying and palliative care through film, Steven Eastwood

ISLAND educational toolkit for trainee medical students and nurses, piloted with partners BARTS/The Royal London, Martlets Hospice, St Oswalds Hospice (2017-19), subsequently licensed to NHS Trusts for use in the training of doctors and nurses..

• Recent Scholarly articles and other Publications
• 2024 Feature article, STIM CINEMA, in Maziere & Reynolds (eds.), Miraj Volume 13 1 and 2 (Intellect Press, 2024).
• 2022 Eastwood, S., Evans, B., Gaigg, S. B., Harbord, J. & Milton, D. (2022). Autism through cinema: co-creation and the unmaking of knowledge. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, pp. 1-18.
• 2021 Feature article, The Neurocultures Collective: how to co-create moving images, Blackwood Gallery (University of Toronto) SDUK (The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge) series 09: DIFFUSING
• 2016 Feature article, Cinemautism, in Bergen-Aurand (ed.), Screen Bodies (Berghahn, 2016) Feature, Inscribing Immanence: filming death and dying, in Elwes (ed.), Miraj Volume 4/2 (Intellect Press, 2016).

2013  Chapter, Buried Land: Filming the Bosnian Pyramids (Eastwood/Rhodes) Screening Nature: Cinema Beyond the Human (Ed. Narraway & Pick. Berghahn Books);

2009-12. Feature article, Powers of the False in Elwes (ed.), Miraj Volume 1 / Issue 2 (Intellect Press, 2012); Chapter, The Film to Come, in Elavia (ed.), Cinematic Folds: the furling and unfurling of images (Pleasure Dome Press, 2009)

Professional Membership, Affiliation, Other (select)

Open City Documentary Festival - Jury Panellist, main award category 2019

British Independent Film Awards - Jury Panellist, Best First Time Director category 2019

Stuart Croft Foundation - Chair, Trustee and co-founder; chair of awards committee. Charity formed to increase public understanding and appreciation of artists’ moving image, providing grants for emerging and established artist-filmmakers, students and researchers. The Foundation makes the archive and films of Stuart Croft (1970-2015) publicly accessible.