Previous projects

From Social Space to Cinematic Space: Mise-en-scènes  of the transnational in contemporary cinema/ Del espacio social al espacio cinematográfico: Mise-en-scènes de lo transnacional en el cine contemporáneo. (PID2021-123836NB-I00)

01/09/2022 – 30/11/2025

Building on the study of social space developed in previous projects, project PID2021-123836NB-I00 (“From Social Space to Cinematic Space: Mise-en-scènes of the Transnational in Contemporary Cinema”) focused on the cinematic construction of space in contemporary transnational cinema. Through the various objectives structuring the project, we examined the representation of cities and borders in film, the spatial configurations of specific genres such as horror and science fiction, the spatial representations of cinematic utopias and dystopias, and the relationships between mobility and space through the figures of children, women, and certain twenty-first-century film stars. Within these spatial configurations, we studied the use of both fictional and real spaces, and the different ways in which the history of these places engages with filmic texts. The theoretical and analytical approach we developed — through the study of individual films and groups of films — adds a new and crucial dimension to our research: films not only construct versions of real places, but real places also speak to us about their history, their urban composition, and their social mobilities, articulating central discourses through cinema. As some of our research outputs demonstrate, films set in real spaces incorporate new discourses into those spaces and thus become part of them. Films use real places and, in the process, real places absorb the cinematic text, in a constant evolution that also involves other filmic texts through a palimpsestic logic. The results of this research have been disseminated through publications in predominantly international journals and presses, participation in international conferences both in Spain and abroad, and three completed doctoral theses, with several more in progress.

Defended doctoral theses
  • Andrés Buesa. “Mobilities and the Child in 21st Century World Cinema”. University of Zaragoza, 2025. Supervisor: Prof. María del Mar Azcona.
  • Costanza Salvi. “Up and down the Rio Grande: mapping out the U.S.-Mexico border in the Classical Hollywood Western, 1930-1960”. University of Zaragoza, 2024. Supervisor: Prof. Celestino Deleyto and Prof. Michela Fadda.
  • Isabel Treviño. “Women on the Move: The Representation of Mobile Professional Women in Twenty-First Century Cinema”. University of Zaragoza, 2023. Supervisor: Prof. María del Mar Azcona.

Between Utopia and Armageddon: The Spaces of the Cosmopolitan in Contemporary Cinema / Entre la utopía y el armageddon: los espacios cosmopolitas en el cine contemporáneo. (FFI2017-83606-P)

01/01/18 – 30/09/22

This project positions cosmopolitanism as one of the most productive frameworks for approaching cinema of recent decades. As a theoretical current originating in the social sciences, cosmopolitanism is closely linked to spaces and their meanings, understood from both a social and a geographical perspective. At the same time, cinema, as an artistic and cultural form, is an eminently spatial medium in its construction and representation of filmic reality. Starting from this point of convergence, this project draws on the growing body of cosmopolitan theory as both a methodology and an analytical approach to filmic texts. Our research has focused on examining film space through a cosmopolitan lens, encompassing the representation of both transnational and virtual spaces. Among our specific objectives, we have studied the representation of spaces that are cosmopolitan par excellence: borders, transnational mobilities, and global cities in contemporary cinema. We have also applied cosmopolitan methodology to film genres in which imagined spaces predominate over real ones, such as science fiction, utopian and dystopian cinema, and horror — specifically films dealing with viruses and pandemics. In addition, we have used this perspective to explore the comedy genre and its intersections with transnational spaces, as well as the concept of “cosmopolitan performance” from the social sciences in relation to film acting.

Through this project, and the one preceding it, we have contributed to the introduction of cosmopolitan theories and reflections from the social sciences into the field of film studies. Given the contested nature of the concept and the frequent classist, elitist, and colonialist connotations associated with the term in everyday language, our methodological approach has proved essential for capturing the polysemy and diversity of cosmopolitanism and the complexity and richness of recent theorisations. We believe this reflection has contributed to understanding and accounting for the cinema of recent decades and its markedly transnational character.

Defended doctoral theses
  • Andrea Sofía Regueira Martín. “Growing Up Is Hard to Do: The Emerging Adult Film.” Universidad de Zaragoza, 2022. Supervisor: Prof. Celestino Deleyto Alcalá.
  • Andrés Bartolomé Leal. “The Spaces of the Transnational in the Cinema of Roman Polanski.” Universidad de Zaragoza, 2021. Supervisor: Prof. Celestino Deleyto Alcalá.
  • Ana López Fuentes. “Cosmopolitanism and Inclusive Education through Disney 21st Century Films.” Universidad de Zaragoza, 2021. Supervisors: Prof. María del Mar Azcona Montoliu and Prof. Begoña Vigo.
  • Mónica Martín Carpio. “The Rebirth of Utopia in 21st-Century Cinema: Cosmopolitan Hopes in the Films of Globalisation.” Universidad de Zaragoza, 2020. Supervisor: Prof. María del Mar Azcona Montoliu.
  • Carolina Oliveira do Amaral. “O espaço-tempo da comédia romântica.” Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, 2018. Supervisors: Prof. Celestino Deleyto Alcalá and Prof. Maurício de Bragança.
  • Pablo Gómez-Muñoz. “A Better World? Cosmopolitan Struggles in Twenty-First Century Science-Fiction Cinema.” Universidad de Zaragoza, 2018. Supervisor: Prof. Celestino Deleyto Alcalá.
From the Transnational to the Cosmopolitan: Methodology for Contemporary Cinema / De lo transnacional a lo cosmopolita: metodología para el cine contemporáneo. (FFI-2013-43968-P)

01/01/14 – 31/12/17

This project proposed the development of a cosmopolitan methodology — as theorised in the social sciences — for the study of contemporary cinema. Through our examination of the concepts of cosmopolitanism, transnationalism, and the border in contemporary film, we laid the first foundations of a methodology suited to understanding new cinematic trends and representations related to these concepts. This methodology is grounded in cosmopolitanism as a point of entry into the exploration of cinema as a transnational phenomenon, and of audiovisual texts as forms of intercultural encounter in a globalised world. While most existing studies attempt to define the profile of a cosmopolitan cinema, or to determine through analysis whether a given audiovisual text — or the audiovisual industries themselves — is more or less cosmopolitan, our primary aim was to find an adequate framework for analysing the cinema of globalisation and transnational cinema: that is, cosmopolitanism as a methodology rather than as an ideology more or less faithfully reflected in texts and industrial processes. These two approaches are not mutually exclusive, and in our work on film and audiovisual culture we frequently encountered cosmopolitan ideas and ideals, whether in the texts themselves or in their interpretation. Cosmopolitanism, however, is difficult to define, and its theoretical and scientific complexity can lead to a critical impasse. We therefore sought to adopt it as a perspective, a point of view, or a way of organising experience, in order to analyse texts and industrial processes shaped by globalisation.

Defended doctoral theses
  • Julia Echeverría. “The Viral Screen: Viruses, Zombies, and Infectious Diseases in Post-millennial films.” Universidad de Zaragoza, 2017. Supervisor: Prof: Celestino Deleyto Alcalá and Prof. María del Mar Azcona Montoliú.
  • Rosa Urtiaga. “Título: Border Women: A Cosmopolitan Approach to Contemporary Cinema“. Universidad de Zaragoza, 2016. Supervisor: Prof. Celestino Deleyto Alcalá.
Humpty Dumpty on the Wall: Transnationalism and the Border in Contemporary Cinema / Humpty Dumpty on the Wall: Transnacionalismo y Frontera en el Cine Contemporáneo (FFI2010-15312)

01/01/11 – 31/12/14

This project, titled “Humpty Dumpty on the Wall: Transnationalism and the Border in Contemporary Cinema,” investigated transnational cinema across its different levels of production, reception, and representation. Within this broader framework, our research focused on a series of specific phenomena: the filmic articulations of particular borders; the representation of global cities and the new spaces of the contemporary world; the growing visibility of cinematic mobilities and the discourses surrounding them; the transnational audiences enabled by new technologies; and the rise of certain contemporary film genres that reflected, in more or less direct ways, the contradictory nature of borders in a globalised world.