Janilda Bartolomeu

Janilda Bartolomeu is a researcher,  filmmaker and film programmer, based in Rotterdam. She has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Arts & Media Studies. As part of the Research & Development department at Het Nieuwe Instituut she researched spectrality within a variety of (post)colonial contexts. Her first project there was titled Colonial Spectres and aimed to develop a cultural reading of the spectres which, in concrete form and as memories, are interwoven with bodies, material spaces and objects between colonised Indonesia and the Netherlands. While her ongoing project with Het Nieuwe Instituut, The Eleventh Island, aims to research the spectral presences, histories and knowledge formation of the Cape Verdean community in Rotterdam.

She was also one of Eye Filmmuseum’s Programmers of the Future (2022-2023), where she created the film programme Black Atlantic Visions that specifically focussed on Afro-diasporic cinema residing within the realms of the speculative, the spiritual and the imaginative. Janilda Bartolomeu’s fascinations include diasporic cinema, (post)colonial hauntings, collective memories and speculative research methodologies.