Biography

Maíra Zenun (1982) is a Brazilian sociologist, transdisciplinary artist, curator, and poet in transit, whose career combines social sciences, motherhood, visual arts, and cinematography. She holds a Master’s degree in Artistic Photography (IPCI/2022); a PhD in Sociology of Cinema, with the thesis ‘THE CITY AND BLACK CINEMA: the FESPACO case’ (UFG/2019); and a Master’s degree in Sociology (UnB/2007). She is part of the FILMASPORA project as a fellowship holder.

In 2016, she participated in the creation of Nêga Filmes, a collective of black women who produce films, photo essays, performances, books, teach courses, and organise black cinema cycles. In 2020, she published the essays ‘Boa sessão de cinema negro, Portugal’ (Good black film session, Portugal) and ‘Feliz, cidade, Félicité? – ou notas breves sobre um filme anticolonialista’ (Happy, city, Félicité? – or brief notes on an anti-colonialist film). She also joined as a guest researcher on the project Memórias que vêm das palavras: olhares museológicos para as literaturas de mulheres negras (Memories that come from words: museological perspectives on the literature of black women) at UFPA and the group ‘Memória, Arte e Alteridade’ (Memory, Art and Otherness) at UFT. In 2021, she published the article ‘Cinemas negros: do recôncavo à kova’ (Black cinema: from the Recôncavo to Kova) in the book Cinema Negro Baiano (Black Cinema in Bahia). In 2023, she had the critical essay ‘Sobre como o tempo encontra a água em Filhas de Lavadeiras’ (On how time meets water in Filhas de Lavadeiras) published in Caderno de Crítica, as well as the article ‘Sobre a Produção de Conhecimento em Diálogo com a Vida ou pela Existência Negra Materna como Método de Escrita sobre um Cinema Anti Racista’ (On the Production of Knowledge in Dialogue with Life or through Black Maternal Existence as a Method of Writing about Anti-Racist Cinema), published in the book Diálogos de Campo – Pesquisas de Campo Participativas em Debate (Field Dialogues – Participatory Field Research in Debate), launched in November 2023.

Research fields

• Sociology of culture
• Sociology of cinema
• Scientific methods

Selected publications

• Almada, Maíra Zenun, “Sobre como o tempo encontra a água em Filhas de Lavadeiras,” in Caderno de Crítica. Oralidade e escrita em narrativas audiovisuais contemporâneas realizadas por mulheres, organised by Glaura Cardoso Vale et al., 25-28. Belo Horizonte: Filmes de Quintal e Rosa de Areia, 2023. [PDF]🔓

Main projects

• Fellow of the project ‘FILMASPORA — Popular Diaspora Films: Towards a New Cine-Geography of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area’ — Coordinated by Catarina Laranjeiro (IHC — NOVA FCSH) and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (2023.11438.PEX). 2025-2026