Biography

Sarah Neely is a writer and lecturer whose work currently focuses on the areas of film history and memory, and artists' moving image. She is co-investigator on the three-year AHRC-funded project, Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive (with Richard Rushton, Lancaster University, and Annette Kuhn, Queen Mary) and is also leading on a year-long project celebrating the centenary of the Scottish filmmaker and poet, Margaret Tait (margarettait100.com). Her recent book, Between Categories: The Films of Margaret Tait, was published by Peter Lang in 2016.She also has an article on the role of archives and collections in the history of artists' moving image in Scotland, included in the recent special double issue of The Moving Image Review & Art Journal (2018), edited by Ben Cook and Lucy Reynolds.​

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Sarah has given talks and curated film programmes at a number of festivals and venues, such as Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Glasgow Short Film Festival, Punto de Vista International Documentary Festival, Orkney Book Festival, Glasgow International, Small Islands Film Festival/Urras Film nan Eileanan Beaga, Istanbul Silent Film Festival, Scottish National Galleries, Stills Gallery, Scottish Poetry Library, Mills College Art Museum (Oakland, California), The Poetic Research Bureau (Los Angeles) and Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art.

Outside of the University, Sarah has served as a member of the advisory boards for LUX Scotland and Creative Stirling and has also served on judging panels for a variety of prizes and awards including the BAFTA new talent awards and the Margaret Tait Award for artists working within film and moving image. In 2017, Sarah was awarded a residency at the Ingmar Bergman Estate on Fårö island in Sweden.