Vito Adriaensens?is a filmmaker, writer, and cinema and performing arts scholar. He has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of the Arts Film Department in New York since 2016, and is currently also a researcher at the Center for Research in Cinema and Performing Arts (CiASp) at the Université libre de Bruxelles. Vito holds a PhD in Theatre Studies and Intermediality from the University of Antwerp and an MFA in Directing from the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema (Brooklyn College). He was a visiting scholar at the University of Copenhagen, and has also taught at the VU University in Amsterdam; the School of Arts, University College in Ghent; as well as given celluloid workshops at Labo BXL and Mono No Aware.
Vito was an executive committee member of Domitor, the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema, and his research focuses on the aesthetic, cultural and art historical interaction between film, theatre and visual arts, with an emphasis on early cinema. He is the co-author of?Screening Statues: Sculpture and Cinema?(with Steven Jacobs, Susan Felleman and Lisa Colpaert), which deals with sculptural motifs from Georges Méliès's animation of statues to experiments in expanded cinema; and the author of the upcoming monograph?Velvet Curtains and Gilded Frames: The Art of Early European Cinema, on early European cinema's appropriation of nineteenth-century theatrical and pictorial strategies.?
His current research project,?From New Stagecraft to New Cinema: Silent Film Performs the Avant-Garde, is an intermedial undertaking geared towards redefining the evolution of cinema against developments in the historical avant-garde in performing arts. Vito is also working on a book for the University of Washington Press that contextualizes the forgotten Finnish genre of the lumberjack film against the backdrop of the country’s socio-political evolutions.?
As a filmmaker, Vito works primarily on celluloid. His feature scripts have advanced through programs such as the Sundance Development Track, and his award-winning experimental films have toured festivals internationally. He is currently in post-production on his first feature, the 35mm anthology film?Ovid, New York.?
Profile: Winnifred Eaton by Vito Adriaensens
Read more on 'Women Film Pioneers Project'?
Past Events
A Collective Ribbon
Poster for Professor Vito Adriaensens's silent film program with live music, to inaugurate the new architectural memorial for the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.?The program took place on Saturday, March 16, 2019 at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Ascending Double Helix
Ascending Double Helix Premiere?at the 27th annual Artifact Small Format Film Festival in Calgary (AB, Canada). March 7, 2019
The Tableau Vivant
Adjunct Assistant Professor?Vito Adriaensens?invited students to the international conference The Tableau Vivant - Across Media, History, and Culture. November 30 - December 2, 2017.
From Real to Surreal: Flemish Artists, Belgian Cinema 1910s – 1980s
June 29, 2016From Real to Surreal: Flemish Artists, Belgian Cinema 1910s – 1980s Il court, il court, le monde, Falsch | Spring 2016
March 6, 2016From Real to Surreal: Flemish Artists, Belgian Cinema 1910s – 1980s | Spring 2016
February 28, 2016 News
Film and Media StudiesShort Film by Professor Vito Adriaensens (Rowlands) to Premiere at Raindance Film Festival
Into The Silver Ether, a short film by Adjunct Assistant Professor, Vito Adriaensens (Rowlands), will premiere at the 28th Annual Raindance Film Festival in its International Shorts Programme.?
Film and Media Studies
Professor Vito Adriaensens’s Film Won at the Cadence Video Poetry Festival 2020 Online
Adjunct Assistant Professor Vito Adriaensens's found-footage ciné roman, Entre Les Images, was shown at the Cadence Video Poetry Festival 2020 where it won in its category, 'Poetry by Video Artists'.?
Film and Media Studies
Film Faculty Member Vito Adriaensens Announces New Publication
Adjunct Assistant Professor Dr. Vito Adriaensens and Dr. Victoria Duckett (Deakin University) recently announced the publication of a special issue on "The Actress-Manager and Early Film" in the journal Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film (Vol. 45, no. 1, 2018).
Film and Media Studies
Columbia in the Summer: An Interview with Summer Faculty Vito Adriaensens
Visiting scholar and Adjunct Assistant Professor Vito Adriaensens is teaching the summer course, History of Animated Films.?
Film and Media Studies
Vito Adriaensens Hosts Public Cinema History Series
When’s the last time you saw a silent movie? And no,?The Artist?doesn’t count.
This spring, students and faculty members in the School of the Arts—as well as the public—will have the opportunity to refresh their knowledge of early cinema through a five-part screening series called “Silent Matinee” hosted by?Vito Adriaensens, a visiting faculty member in the Film Program.
? Jolene Lupo
Adjunct Associate Professor, Film
Spring 2023