May El Koussa

After following a practice-based path in experimental cinema and video art, with a Master’s in Visual and Performing Arts from the Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik in Lebanon, she moved into research in “Film Studies” following her studies at Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne. In 2013, she obtained a doctorate in “Arts and Sciences of Art”, specialising in “Cinema and Audiovisual Studies”, from the same university.

In 2014, she began teaching at ALBA and contributed to the development of the curriculum of the School of Cinema and Audiovisual Production by offering innovative courses in the field of film studies. She teaches cinema and research methodology courses in various Schools of the Academy, in addition to her work at other universities in Lebanon. She was also coordinator of the film history and film analysis courses from 2018 to 2021.

As a researcher, she has been an associate member of the Institut ACTE (Arts, Creation, Theory, Aesthetics) – Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne since 2009. Her book entitled De la dynamique des larmes au cinéma – Sirk, Kieslowski, Bergman was published in 2023 by L’Harmattan in the Champs Visuels series; in it, she further develops the ideas of her thesis concerning tears in cinema through an aesthetic and interdisciplinary approach.

Her articles are published in peer-reviewed international journals and appear as chapters in internationally renowned collective volumes.

Her research focuses on European, Mediterranean and Lebanese cinemas, as well as on questions related to erasure, to tears in cinema and, more recently, to the role of philosophy (mainly the concepts of Michel Foucault and Maurice Merleau-Ponty) in film analysis.