Alfio Leotta

Alfio’s primary research interests focus on the relation between film and tourism; national cinema; the globalisation of film production; film authorship and genre. His first book 'Touring the Screen: Tourism and New Zealand Film Geographies' (Intellect, 2011) examines the representation of landscape in a number of film productions shot in New Zealand which have subsequently been used as marketing tools to attract tourists to the country. He is also the author of 'The Bloomsbury Companion to Peter Jackson' (Bloomsbury, 2016) and 'The Cinema of John Milius' (Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington, 2018). Recently, he also co-edited 'Audiovisual Tourism Promotion' (Palgrave 2022) with Diego Bonelli.

Alfio is also an award-winning film-maker who produced and directed a number of poetry films and fantasy short films that have screened at festivals both in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas. In 2022 Alfio produced ‘Follow the Light’, a short film shot and set at Victoria University that was produced to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the institution. Alfio is also the founder and director of the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (https://www.aotearoapff.com).