Monia Acciari

Dr Monia Acciari serves as Associate Professor at De Montfort University's Leicester Media School within the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media. She concurrently holds leadership roles as Associate Director of the UK Asian Film Festival (Leicester) and Principal Investigator for the Building Audiences diasporic community engagement project.

Her educational background includes:

• BA and MA in Film Studies from the University of Bologna, Italy
• MA in New Media from the European Institute of Design, Milan, Italy
• PhD from the University of Manchester, UK (AHRC-funded project: 'Indo-Italian screens and the Aesthetic of Emotions')

Acciari's research centers on film festival dynamics, Bollywood's global circulation, and transnational cinema, with particular focus on South Asian diasporic communities in Europe. She employs qualitative methodologies including ethnographic audience studies and archival research to examine cultural translation through dubbing/subtitling, cinematic representation of ethnicity, and film preservation practices in India. Her work bridges film studies, cultural theory, and urban geography to analyze how festivals create cosmopolitan spaces.

Analysis of her 2014-2019 publications reveals consistent investigation of film festivals as sites for cultural exchange, diaspora engagement, and heritage preservation. Her scholarship demonstrates evolving focus from Bollywood's European reception toward methodological innovations in mapping cinematic heritage sites and analyzing transnational audience formation through digital platforms.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• AHRC Doctoral Fellowship

Acciari has secured £5,800 in external research funding including an AHRC OWRI grant for Multilingual Euro-Bollywood (2018) and BAFTSS workshop funding (2017). Internally, she received three consecutive DMULocal grants (£5,000 each) for the UK Asian Film Festival (2017-2019) and £2,700 for the Building Audiences community project. As Principal Investigator, she leads collaborative research with Indian institutions including the University of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad.

She maintains active affiliation with the Cinema and Television History (CATHI) Research Centre and participates in international networks including the Euro-Bollywood Research Network, Transnational Cinema Research Network, and Film Festival Research Network.