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Ilona Hongisto

Ilona Hongisto

Professor in Film Studies
Department of Art and Media Studies
Faculty of Humanities

ilona.hongisto@ntnu.no
Bygg 8, 8439, Dragvoll
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About Publications Teaching Media

About

Professor Ilona Hongisto landed in Trondheim from Sydney, Australia, where she was a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Macquarie University. Through an honorary affiliation at Macquarie, Ilona continues to collaborate with her Australian colleagues. Originally from Finland, she is also affiliated with the University of Turku, where she is a Docent (Adjunct Professor) in Media Theory and Aesthetics, and Aalto University, Helsinki, where she is a Docent in Documentary Film. Ilona defended her PhD at the University of Turku in 2011.

Within the discipline of Film Studies, Ilona’s work falls under three broad categories. The first category is experimental film and video art and it concerns the intertwinement of movement and experimental aesthetic forms – from the history of avant-garde film to digital projections in gallery spaces. The second is documentary theory and practice, where the emphasis is on conceptualizing documentary film from the point of view of experimentation. Ilona argues that documentaries not only show and tell what has been or what is; they also experiment with the limits of the real, shape its consistency and push reality to actualise in new ways. The third area of interest is Europe in transition; here, Ilona historizes her theoretical claims by asking how Eastern European documentaries evoke and envision a future after the socio-political turmoil of 1989.

Ilona is available to supervise MA and PhD projects in the following areas: 

  • Documentary practice, theory, and history
  • Film theory and aesthetics
  • Sound and music in film
  • Experimental film and expanded moving image practices
  • Affect theory, new materialism and posthumanism
  • Truth and falsity in film and media
  • Subjectivity and audiovisual cultures
  • Film festivals

In 2021–2022, Ilona teaches FILM2201 Documentary and FILM1102 Theories and Aesthetics of Film. All of her lectures will be in English but students are welcome to submit work in Norwegian. 

For a list of publications, please navigate to Ilona's webpage.

 

Competencies

  • Affect theory
  • Documentary film
  • Film history
  • Film history, theory and methods
  • Film studies
  • Humanities
  • Media Aesthetics
  • Media Theory
  • Other subjects within philosophy

Publications

  • Chronological
  • By category
  • See all publications in Cristin

2022

  • Hongisto, Ilona. (2022) ’In Europe, no one was paying attention’: Honeyland on the festival circuit. Honeyland. A Docalogue.
    Academic chapter/article/Conference paper

2020

  • Hongisto, Ilona; Hynnä-Granberg, Kaisu; Suvanto, Annu. (2020) The Invention of Northeastern Europe: The Geopolitics of Programming at Documentary Film Festivals. Documentary Film Festivals: Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives (Vol. 2).
    Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
  • Hongisto, Ilona; Kontturi, Katve-Kaisa. (2020) Fabulous folds: revolutionary costumes in Grey Gardens (1975). Journal of Aesthetics and Culture. volum 12 (1).
    Academic article

2019

  • Hongisto, Ilona; Stavning Thomsen, Bodil Marie. (2019) The Automata of Movement: Immediations of Memory in Hu Jieming’s The Remnants of Images (2013). Immediation. Volume 1.
    Academic chapter/article/Conference paper

Journal publications

  • Hongisto, Ilona; Kontturi, Katve-Kaisa. (2020) Fabulous folds: revolutionary costumes in Grey Gardens (1975). Journal of Aesthetics and Culture. volum 12 (1).
    Academic article

Part of book/report

  • Hongisto, Ilona. (2022) ’In Europe, no one was paying attention’: Honeyland on the festival circuit. Honeyland. A Docalogue.
    Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
  • Hongisto, Ilona; Hynnä-Granberg, Kaisu; Suvanto, Annu. (2020) The Invention of Northeastern Europe: The Geopolitics of Programming at Documentary Film Festivals. Documentary Film Festivals: Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives (Vol. 2).
    Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
  • Hongisto, Ilona; Stavning Thomsen, Bodil Marie. (2019) The Automata of Movement: Immediations of Memory in Hu Jieming’s The Remnants of Images (2013). Immediation. Volume 1.
    Academic chapter/article/Conference paper

Teaching

Courses

  • FVP2004 - Documentary
  • FILM2201 - Documentary

Media

2020

  • Popular scientific lecture
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2020) Cinematic Scale: Sissel M. Bergh's Audiovisual Depths. Film Seminar: Watermark . Kosmorama Film Festival, IKM at NTNU; Trondheim. 2020-03-04 - 2020-03-04.
  • Academic lecture
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2020) Documentary studies in transition. Lübeck Film Studies Colloquium ; Lübeck. 2020-11-06.
  • Interview
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2020) Fem filmer å se for å forstå aktivisme. https://www.nrk.no/kultur/fem-filmer-a-se-for-a-forsta-aktiv [Internett]. 2020-07-09.
  • Popular scientific lecture
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2020) For Sama: contemporary autoethnography in documentary. Snakk om film . Kosmorama Film Festival, IKM at NTNU; Trondheim. 2020-03-05 - 2020-03-05.
  • Academic lecture
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2020) Precarious Relationalities: Corporeal vulnerability and the neoliberal condition in recent Northeastern European film. Precarity in Contemporary European Fiction and Documentary Film . Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf; Potsdam. 2020-01-30 - 2020-02-01.
  • Interview
    Hongisto, Ilona; Ratala, Onni; Kontturi, Katve-Kaisa. (2020) Animaatio valtavirran tuolla puolen. Turun Sanomat [Avis]. 2020-07-11.

2019

  • Popular scientific lecture
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2019) Sissel M. Bergh's Cinematic Knowhow: On Tjætsie and audiovisual epistemology. Hvor skal humla suse? . Environmental Humanities Research Group, NTNU; Trondheim. 2019-09-05 - 2019-09-05.
  • Academic lecture
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2019) Sound-events: Ambient sound in observational documentary. Documentary Sound, Sound as Documentation . Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA); University of Amsterdam. 2019-11-26 - 2019-11-26.
  • Academic lecture
    Hongisto, Ilona. (2019) Sound-objects: The material persistence of ambient sound in documentary cinema. Motive, Materiality, Movement: Inseparability in Interdisciplinary Music Studies and Practices . Grieg Research School; University of Bergen. 2019-11-25 - 2019-11-28.
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