Instructor Bio

Moira Sullivan is a lecturer and experimental filmmaker based in San Francisco and Stockholm. Since 2013 she has taught Cinema Studies in the Cinema Department at  City College of San Francisco and "Women in Film" in the Women and Gender Studies Department.  She has a PhD and MA in Cinema Studies from Stockholm University and did graduate studies in film production and cinema studies at San Francisco State University Cinema Department.  In her courses she applies critical studies of women and film to new and classic work such as Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust and Jennifer Kent's The Babadook and analyses the film stylistic system - how a film is shot, cut, framed and how it sounds for filmmaking students.  Moira has taught women and film courses in filmmaking in Sweden and organized a screening forum in Stockholm with invited guests such as Barbara Hammer. In her film courses, she concentrates on the life cycle of film from inception to reception through discussions and screenings of Asian film, films by Queer Women of Color, ethnographic film, and independent and international film. 

Moira has taught Cinema Studies at national universities in Sweden, and Tufts and Emerson College in Boston. She has also been invited to guest lecture at universities and art schools such as California Academy of Arts in San Francisco, Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, University of Basel ‘s Department of Media Arts in Switzerland, and the Busan International Short Film Festival in South Korea.  

Moira is one of the world’s experts on the work of the avantgarde and ethnographic filmmaker Maya Deren (1917-1961) and did primary source research at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, and at Anthology Film Archives in New York.  Sullivan's doctoral dissertation An Anagram of the Ideas of Filmmaker Maya Deren (1997) is about the films and theories of Maya Deren, with new research on Deren's ethnographic scholarship and filmmaking in Haiti. Excerpts were published in "Maya Deren's Ethnographic Representation of Ritual and Myth in Haiti", in Bill Nichols, ed. Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde, University of California Press, 2001. Recent Deren publication includes "Cross-fertilization of the ethnographic work of Maya Deren, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson", Décadrages, Switzerland, autumn 2019; and El Universo Dereniano: Textos fundamentales de la cineasta Maya Deren,  (The Deren Universe, Fundamental texts of the cinéaste Maya Deren) 2nd edition, Spain, translated by Carolina Martinez with foreword by Moira Sullivan, 2020.  In the Maya Deren Collection, Kino Lorber,  Blu-ray edition, 2020 Moira has done special feature commentaries and the brochure. 

Moira is a professional film critic and attends film festivals in San Francisco, Edinburgh, Cannes, Venice, the Udine Far East Film Festival, and Créteil International Women's Film Festival. She has been awarded several CCSF travel grants to Cannes and to Créteil as an accredited film critic. In 2012 she served on the Queer Palm Jury at the 65th Cannes Film Festival.  She is a member of FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics), GALECA (Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics), and AWFJ (Alliance of Women Film Journalists). Her film criticism can be found on agnesfilms.com named for filmmaker Agnès Varda, and the largest portal of global film festivals in Filmfestivals.com. Moira does weekly broadcasts on women and film on Annakarinaland.org for San Francisco Community Radio KXSF.fm since 2024 and Movie Magazine International since 1995. She has interviewed directors and actors such as Julie Dash, Maria Schneider, Jane Campion, Joan Chen, Mary Harron, Zoe Cassavetes, Lauren Bacall, and Laurie Anderson.