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Staff profile

Overview

Professor Santiago Fouz-Hernández

Professor

Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures+44 (0) 191 33 43455

Biography

After completing my undergraduate studies at the University of Santiago de Compostela and an MA and PhD at Newcastle University, I joined Durham University in 1999 to teach European cinema.  I currently teach and supervise dissertations and postgraduate work in the areas of Iberian Studies (in Modern Languages and Cultures) and Film Studies (Visual Arts and Film). I specialise in Spanish cinema, with a particular focus on the films of Bigas Luna and on representations of masculinities in contemporary film and popular culture.

The films of Bigas Luna

My latest monograph, The Films of Bigas Luna (Manchester University Press, 2025, 472 pp.), is the culmination of a long project including the edited collections El legado cinematográfico de Bigas Luna (Tirant lo Blanch, 2020, 373 pp.), Spanish Erotic Cinema (EUP, 2017, 264 pp), and a special issue of Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas (13.1, 2016, 113 pp.), as well as a series of public engagement events (a touring film retrospecitve and exhibitions) and a podcast.

Since 2015, I have co-organised The Bigas Luna Tribute with the filmmaker’s daughter, Betty Bigas, presenting screenings and exhibitions in more than 30 cities worldwide. Most recently, Toulouse, San Francisco (2025); Genoa, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília (2024); Los Angeles, London (2023); New York, Copenhagen, Cleveland, Edinburgh (2022); and Madrid (2021). Our retrospective at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles attracted over 1,000 attendees. The tenth anniversary editions of the Tribute received support from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports.

Since 2020, I have co-produced, edited, and hosted a Bigas Luna podcast, with guests including casting director Consol Tura; cinematographer Josep M Civit; screenwriters Cuca Canals and Carmen Chaves; editors Teresa Font, Jaume Martí, Anastasi Rinos and Tom Sabin; filmmakers Santiago Garrido, Javier Guitiérrez,  Carles Porta and Rosa Vergés; sound designers Albert Manera and Ricard Casals; set designers Antxón Gómez and Chu Uroz; flamenco artist Miguel Poveda; actors Biel Durán, Anna Galiena, Jorge Perugorría, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Assumpta Serna, and many others.

My work on Bigas Luna has been featured in international media, including, in Spain, El País (2017and 2022) and national television RTVE2  (Historia de nuestro cine, May 2021); in Australia, The Age - and across Fairfax network (2018), in Costa Rica, La nación (2018); or, in Brasil, Correio de Manhã (2024), among others. I have also talked about this project in podcasts, including FRED, The Festival Insider (2018) and New Books Network (2021). I have introduced Bigas Luna films at festivals in Australia, France, Mexico, the UK and Spain, including the SEMINCI in Valladolid in 2022; the National Academia de Cine in 2024 (full recording) and the 72nd San Sebastian International Film Festival, SSIFF, also in 2024.  

In 2025, my research features in the Blu-ray box set Bigas Luna: Pulsions, Obsessions, Transgressions (Artus Films, France), for which I contributed with a written interview for the companion book and video introductions for each of the three films included. It can be purchased here. I have also contributed bonus features for a new boxset forthcoming in 2026 in the USA with Severin Films.

I have talked about my book The Films of Bigas Luna for podcast interviews including the Bigas Luna podcast, Pleibéricos (Screen Studies special), New Books Network (Film and Iberian Studies channels) and Palomitas. The full recording of the book launch at the Filmoteca de Catalunya is also available here (December 2025). There will be a new book launch at the Instituto Cervantes in London on Thursday April 6th, 2026, as part of the London Spanish Film Festival spring weekend.

Masculinities and the body

Beyond Bigas Luna, I am the author of Cuerpos de cine (2013) and co-author of Live Flesh: The Male Body in Contemporary Spanish Cinema (2007). My current book project, provisionallly entitled Second Skins. Male Bodies in Crises in 21st Century Spanish Cinema (with Alfredo Martínez Expósito, University of Melbourne) is under contract with Bloomsbury. It explores representations of male bodies in Spanish cinema from 2008 to the present, against the backdrop of the financial crisis, the 15M, the resurgence of the far right, and the Covid-19 pandemic. This project has received funding from The CASS Foundation (Walter Mangold Fellowship, 2022–23) and the British Academy (2026). More info.

My most recent publications since 2020 are listed below.

Other Current Research and Projects

Ventura Pons: Guest editor of a forthcoming special issue of Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas (vol. 21, no. 3, 2026) on the late Catalan filmmaker.

Music and Nostalgia: In preparation: article on 1980s nostalgia focused on tribute acts and popular literature around the pop band Mecano.

Video essay: In preparation: video essay, 'Blood, Sweat and Tears. The Haptic Cinema of Bigas Luna'. 

Editorial Roles: Editorial board, Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas; advisory board, International Journal of Iberian Studies.

Fred Film Radio (The Festival Insider): Ongoing collaboration with Fred Radio as a reporter, covering film festivals and other events, mostly in the UK. My latest posts and interviews are available from my Fred profile here. 

Pleibéricos: Co-host with Dr Esther Gimeno Ugalde (UPF) of Pleibéricos, an interview series on new Iberian Studies publications, in partnership with New Books Network en Español. In 2022, we received a Hispanex grant to host a hybrid panel at Instituto Cervantes (Madrid) and to create a database of publications funded by a Hispanex grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports. 

Instituto Cervantes: Ongling collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes, especially in Manchester (also in Brasilia, Rio, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Vienna), with a series of events showcasing the work of (and in conversation with) prominent Spanish filmmakers, as well as collaborating on an online course on Spanish cinema.

Consultancy

In addition to the events, more than 100 film screenings and podcasts mentioned above, my research on Bigas Luna has informed two DVD/Blu-ray boxsets, several newspaper articles (see above) and a video essay on masculinities in the films of Bigas Luna directed by Santiago Garrido. 

My research on masculinities and male bodies has led to consultancy work for various agencies, informing reports for MTV networks, PEPSICO, and male cosmetics brands. This research has also been cited in El País newspaper (ICON magazine) in 2026, in BBC Culture in 2025, and lead to an invitation to author an article for The Conversation.

Visiting Positions & Fellowships

Walter Mangold Visiting Fellowship, University of Melbourne (2022–23).

Honorary Fellow, Madrid Institute for Advanced Study (MIAS, François Chevalier fellow, 2021).

Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley (2015), Pittsburgh (2015), Harvard (2012), CUNY Graduate Center (2010), and Queensland (2001-02 and 2005).

External examiner for Hispanic Studies (most recently Cambridge, Kent).

Chair, QA Review for Spanish programmes, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago (2014).

Initiator and co-founder of the Durham University–British Film Institute partnership (2020)

Public Role

Honorary Vice-Consul of Spain in the North East and Cumbria

For consular queries (passports, NIEs, official documents), please contact ch.newcastle@maec.es. Responses within 48 hours. Please do not send personal data or paperwork to my Durham University email.

Research interests

  • Contemporary European Cinema (Spanish and British)
  • Contemporary Spain
  • Bigas Luna
  • Ventura Pons
  • Erotic cinema
  • Queer cinema
  • Auteur cinema
  • Gender, sexuality and the body
  • Popular music
  • Haptic visuality

Publications

Authored book

Book review

Chapter in book

  • Spanish Queer Cinema
    Fouz-Hernández, S. (2022). Spanish Queer Cinema. In I. West (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Queer Studies and Communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1365
  • ‘Tablas, memoria, deseo: la vejez en el cine de Ventura Pons’
    Fouz Hernández, S. (2021). ‘Tablas, memoria, deseo: la vejez en el cine de Ventura Pons’. In B. Zecchi, R. Medina, C. Moreiras Menor, & M. P. Rodríguez (Eds.), Envejecimientos y cines ibéricos (pp. 141-168). Tirant lo Blanch.
  • Bambola (1996)
    Fouz-Hernández, S. (2020). Bambola (1996). In S. Fouz-Hernández (Ed.), El legado cinematográfico de Bigas Luna (pp. 177-201). Tirant lo Blanch.
  • Transnational and Migrant Queer Affects in Two Basque Films
    Fouz Hernández, S., & Martinez Expósito, A. (2020). Transnational and Migrant Queer Affects in Two Basque Films. In J. Williams (Ed.), Queering the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema (pp. 59-71). Routledge.
  • Segon origen (2015) y Bigas x Bigas (2016)
    Fouz-Hernández, S. (2020). Segon origen (2015) y Bigas x Bigas (2016). In S. Fouz-Hernández (Ed.), El legado cinematográfico de Bigas Luna (pp. 315-338). Tirant lo Blanch.
  • Introducción
    Fouz-Hernández, S. (2020). Introducción. In S. Fouz-Hernández (Ed.), El legado cinematográfico de Bigas Luna (pp. 17-31). Tirant lo Blanch.

Conference Paper

Edited book

Journal Article

Newspaper/Magazine Article

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

Presentation

Supervision students

Min Xu