Sophie Everest

I am a Lecturer in Film Practice in the Drama Department at the University of Manchester. My research explores the role of filmmaking as museological, archival and heritage practice. 

I started my career in factual television production, working for the majority of time in BBC Current Affairs where I first developed my skills as a self-shooting documentary director and editor. Alongside my role at the University I am a Director of Belle Vue Productions, a film production and creative research company that works with arts and heritage organisations.

My research connects directly with my work at Belle Vue, implementing and investigating film as a tool to capture and initiate relationships between audiences, collections and cultural practice within museums, archives and heritage spaces. Underpinning my research is a commitment to film as a socially engaged practice that invites collaboration and co-creation. I am particularly interested in using film archives and film practice to co-investigate colonial museum histories with audience communities; archival film; film as contemporary collecting practice and film as a tool for advocacy and evaluation.

I have worked with a wide range of cultural and charitable partners including The Greater Manchester Combined Authority; The Barbican Gallery; National Museums Liverpool; Showtown: The Blackpool Museum Project; The Whitworth Art Gallery; The Manchester Museum; Manchester City Council; Manchester Art Gallery; The Women’s Institute; The Churches Conservation Trust and Wood Street Mission.

CURRENT PROJECTS:

Film partner: AHRC Pet Histories and Wellbeing Project with the Geffrye Museum of the Home

Film partner: Platt Hall Inbetween https://www.platthall.org/

Film and evaluation partner: Greater Manchester Combined Authority Cultural Strategy

Film partner: ‘Where Next?’ gallery re-development project at Liverpool’s World Museum

Film partner: Manchester Together Archive project with the Institute for Cultural Practices, University of Manchester, Manchester Art Gallery and Archives+ 

Before joining the Drama Department I also taught filmmaking within the History Department and filmmaking and cultural policy within Arts Management Policy and Practice, both at the University of Manchester. My MA and AHRC-funded practice-based PhD 'Film and the Production of Knowledge at the Manchester Museum' were both completed in Museum Studies at The University of Manchester.