Catherine Grant

Catherine Grant is Honorary Professor at Aarhus Universitet, Denmark, Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, where she was Professor of Digital Media and Screen Studies until 2020, and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, UK. She was elected a member of the Film, Media and Visual Studies section of Academia Europaea in 2020. She carries out her film and moving image studies research mostly in the form of remix-based video essays. She also runs the Film Studies For Free social media platforms, and is a founding co-editor of the award-winning peer-reviewed journal [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies.

169 Seconds: Una mujer reflejada / A Reflected Woman

169 SECONDS. In this installment of our jubilee series of 169 Seconds, Catherine Grant collects mirror and reflection sequences from the 2017 Chilean film Una mujer fantástica and ponders their significance in this narrative of queer melancholia and mourning. The film stars Daniela Vega, a trans actress and mezzo-soprano, who, in the closing moments of the film, sings the song that accompanies the essay: “Ombra mai fu”, the opening aria from Händel’s 1738 opera Serse.