Dani Landau

Academic profile

Dr Dani Landau

Lecturer in Filmmaking
School of Art, Design and Architecture (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business)

The Global Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Dani's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

Goal 04: SDG 4 - Quality EducationGoal 05: SDG 5 - Gender EqualityGoal 11: SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and CommunitiesGoal 16: SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong InstitutionsGoal 17: SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals

About Dani

I make films, photographs, and experimental photomedia projects. I specialise in documentary practices, cinematography, place-related work. I have previously worked in various media production roles including as cinematographer on a feature drama film about indigenous land rights in Bolivia. I worked in socially engaged arts supporting people without filmmaking experience to make films about their own lives. This involved working with participants to co-design variations on the Digital Storytelling filmmaking method.

I work half the week at the University of Plymouth. My teaching enables students to apply contemporary technical skills in critical creative practice.  I currently lead three modules. In the Professional Filmmaker module student filmmakers work together with partners in the third sector to make issue based non-fiction films. In Screen Dialogues students apply insights from film studies to develop film practice. In the Experimentation module students create a portfolio of short risk-taking practice-based research pieces in preparation for their end of course short film piece. I supervise PhD students using practice-based research in filmmaking, photography, contemporary art, and socially engaged arts practice.

My current research is concentrates on the relationships produced between place, people, and image. This has resulted in film, located media, and augmented reality work. I have worked as a Government Adivsor on Place. I am currently collaborating in a research project at Filmuniversität Babelsberg involving approaches from cultural post-humanism in collaborative film production. My writing employs the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead in understanding how photomedia practices produce novel modes of relation. For example, I am currently researching how techniques such as photogrammetry and lidar afford ways of making moving image that create different understandings of place.

I am proud to be involved in the unique filmmaking department at the University of Plymouth.

Contact Dani