Mariana Duarte Oliveira

As a filmmaker, director, and editor, I have worked on a range of commercial and independent projects, spanning creative non-fiction, scripted film, and television. My credits include commissions from the Scottish Documentary Institute (Headland, 2024) and Centre Vidéo de Bruxelles (Newcomers, 2013). A Berlinale Talents alumna, her work has been screened at international festivals, including Big Sky, Edinburgh, Kinoforum, Tiradentes, and Rio de Janeiro Int'l Film Festival.

Before pursuing a PhD by Practice in Film at Edinburgh College of Art, I graduated from the Kino Eyes Erasmus Film Masters and spent over seven years as a video editor at TV Globo, one of the world’s largest media companies. My research and teaching interests include creative non-fiction, intercultural cinema, decolonising practices, border aesthetics, and themes of travel, movement, and displacement in film. My latest publication, A Camera in the Water: Reframing the Migrant Image in Documentary Film, was featured in Screen Journal.

Collaboration is central to my creative process. Whether on set, in the editing room, teaching, or researching, I strive to foster an inclusive and open environment that encourages experimentation and shared storytelling. My work is shaped by the intercultural experiences I’ve gained throughout my career. Having lived and worked in Brazil, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Estonia, I am now based in Scotland.

Tutor in Design & Screen Cultures

Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

• Delivering lectures and leading seminars for the Contemporary Cinema course (DESI08010).
• Supervising undergraduate dissertations for Design & Screen Cultures 4 (DESI10052).

Intercultural cinema, creative non-fiction film, film philosophy, visual anthropology, decolonising practices, border, displacement and movement in film.