UAL PhD researcher, artist, and educator Allessandra Ferrini has been announced as a runner up for BAFTSS Awards 2023, under the ‘Doctoral Category’. Her essay film Gaddafi in Rome: Notes for a Film explored the 2009 meeting between Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gaddafi in Rome.

The British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) aims to promote the discipline. As well as represent the academics and professionals to the academy, government, funding agencies, the cultural industries, and the public. The practitioners are given an opportunity to attend and present at the annual BAFTSS conference. The Doctoral Category is part of the conference, this years’ theme being “Sustainable Futures: Ethics, Responsibility and Care in Film, Television, Screen Studies and Practices.”

Ferrini’s long form essay film presents three acts, including images and news produced in real time during the event and archive materials. At the centre of the work is a photograph of the meeting with Silvio Berlusconi at Ciampino airport and the protests sparked by Gaddafi’s choice to display an image on his chest. The images are accompanied by Ferrini’s voice as she reflects on the diplomatic and power relations at play, highlighting the relationship between the Treaty of Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation between Italy and Libya. The film enacts the public dissection of the event, focusing on the media representation, power structure and on their performative aspects. Ferrini also reflects on the colonial aspects and the abuses in history within the Euro-Mediterranean politics.