Staff Profile

I joined Newcastle University's School of Modern Languages in September 2016, after completing an AHRC-funded PhD at the University of Cambridge on national identity in contemporary Cuban film. I have a background in English literature and Spanish (language and literature), and have dabbled in documentary filmmaking.

My current research project examines 21st-century insular Hispanic Caribbean film in order to develop an understanding of the relationship between coloniality and ecology, asking to what extent, and in what ways, film can build decolonial ecologies. For more information, please see the 'Research' tab and the project website.

I am the co-founder (with Professor Emerita Mary Leonard) of Caribbean Film Forum, a platform that aims to strengthen networks of filmmakers, curators, and scholars and raise the visibility of Caribbean cinema via online and in-person screenings, conversations, and debates, and of the Caribbean Film Educators’ Network, which aims to support and strengthen pedagogical collaborations and student opportunity in the region.

Areas of expertise

• Cuba
• Puerto Rico
• Dominican Republic
• Film
• Latin American Studies
• Cultural Studies
• Environmental Humanities

Google scholar: Click here.

SCOPUS: Click here.

ORCID: Click here.

Since my initial research on 21st-century Cuban cinema, I have been working towards a comparative approach informed by concepts such as Relation (Glissant) to argue for the productivity and importance of making connections between the cinemas of the Caribbean, particularly of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and their diasporas. This comparative spirit is behind international conferences such as 'Decentred / Dissenting Connections: Envisioning Caribbean Film and Visual Cultures’ (2018, co-convened with Dr Francisco-J. Hernández Adrián, Durham University) and Mapping New Caribbean Cinema (co-convened with Professor Emerita Mary Leonard); the Caribbean Film Forum (co-founded in 2021 with Professor Leonard), an online platform that aims to build up the network of filmmakers, curators, scholars, and lovers of Caribbean film through a series of in-person and virtual conversations; and the Caribbean Film Educators' Network (co-founded in 2022 with Professor Leonard), which aims to facilitate collaboration and connection between film educators and students across the region.

My current research project examines 21st-century films and film practices of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico as a way to better understand the intersections of ecology - the sum of relationships among humans and between human and non-human nature - and coloniality - the unequal, extractive, and destructive structures and practices that ensue from colonialism and continue to shape social institutions, relations, and knowledge production in the present. The project is funded by an AHRC Research, Development, and Engagement Fellowship commencing in September 2025.

I teach mainly on the literatures, films, and cultures of Latin America, incorporating my research on film, which has addressed questions of national and regional (Caribbean) identities; neoliberalism and cultural branding; ethics, hospitality, and otherness; genre; place and space; the representation of children on screen; archives, databases, and canons; temporality and ecology.

Modules that I have led and taught on include:

SML1021: Introduction to International Film

LAS2033: Envisioning Identities in Latin American Film

LAS4032: Caribbean Imaginaries: Image, Text, Music

SPA4081: Level D (HE Further Advanced) Spanish: Advanced Writing Skills

PhD Supervision

I am particularly interested in reviewing and supervising MLitt and PhD work on

• Caribbean and Latin American cinema and visual cultures
• Representations of and responses to ecological change and crisis in film and visual cultures
• National, regional, and diasporic identities in cinema
• Community film practices

• Articles

  • Fehimovic D. Ethics, hospitality and aesthetics in Fresa y chocolate/Strawberry and Chocolate (Gutiérrez Alea and Tabío 1993) and Santa y Andrés/Santa and Andrés (Lechuga 2016). Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas 2020, 17(3), 409-425.
  • Fehimovic D. The Appeal of the 'Old School': From De cierta manera/ One Way or Another (1974) to Conducta/ Behaviour (2014). Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas 2017, 14(2), 133-152.
  • Fehimovic D. Not Child's Play: Tactics and Strategies in Viva Cuba and Habanastation. Bulletin of Latin American Research 2015, 34(4), 503-516.
  • Fehimovic D, Stone R. Cuba's Cinematic Elan Vital: Cubanidad and Cubania as Citizenship and Sentiment. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 2014, 23(3), 298-303.

• Authored Book

  • Fehimović D. National Identity in 21st-Century Cuban Cinema: Screening the Repeating Island. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

• Book Chapters

  • Fehimovic D, Zarza Z. Twenty-First-Century Cuban Film and Diaspora. In: Loss J; Unruh V, ed. The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, pp.656 - 672.
  • Fehimovic, D. Colonialidad, apocalípsis, y lo Antropozoico noir en Candela. In: Tolentino, A; Tomé, P, ed. La gran pantalla dominicana Volúmen II: La ebullición creativa del siglo XXI. Leiden: Almenara Press, 2024, pp.93-124.
  • Fehimovic D. Connected in "another way": repetition, difference and identity in Caribbean cinema. In: Paul Cooke, Stephanie Dennison, Alex Marlow-Mann, Rob Stone, ed. The Routledge Companion to World Cinema. Routledge, 2018, pp.111-121.
  • Fehimovic D. Zombie Nation: Monstrous Identities in Three Cuban Films. In: Guy Baron, Ann Marie Stock, Antonio Álvarez Pitaluga, ed. The Cinema of Cuba: Contemporary Film and the Legacy of Revolution. I. B. Tauris, 2017, pp.147-170.
  • Fehimovic D. Cinema and Nation Branding in Cuba. In: Dinnie K, ed. Nation Branding : Concepts, Issues, Practice. London: Routledge, 2015, pp.131-134.

• Edited Book

  • Fehimovic D, Ogden R, ed. Branding Latin America: Strategies, Aims, Resistance. Lexington Books, 2018.