# Isabelle Carbonell

Isabelle Carbonell is a Belgian-Uruguayan-American award-winning experimental documentary filmmaker, and an assistant film professor at the American University of Paris. She holds a PhD in film from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research and practice lie at the intersection of expanded documentary, environmental justice, and the Anthropocene, while striving to develop new visual and sonic approaches and methods to rethink documentary filmmaking and create a "multispecies cinema". Imbued in all her work is the connection between the slow violence of environmental disaster, climate change, bodies of water, more-than-humans, and the future. Carbonell's award-winning films and installation works have been presented in museums, film festivals, and art galleries internationally.

## Academic publications

Some of Carbonell's work comprise the following academic publications:
* Interactive Multispecies Documentary Methods (2022)
* Multispecies Cinema in Wretched Waters: The Slow Violence of the Rio Doce Disaster (2021)
* Polyps are a Pluriverse in the Feral Atlas (2020)
* A Story on Story: Camel Racing, Robot Jockeys, and Documentary Filmmaking (2020)
* Coming to Our Senses beyond the Talking-Head: the Panesthetic Documentary Interview (2018)
* The Ethics of Big Data in Big Agriculture (2016)
* Golden Snail Opera: the More-Than-Human-Performance of Friendly Farming on Taiwan's Lanyang Plain (2016)

## Education

Carbonell holds a PhD in film from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also received her B.A. in Residential College Social Science and in Environmental Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI and completed her M.A. in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

## Awards and nominations

* Princess Grace Award | Graduate Film Scholarship 2019
* Mellon Dissertation grant Beyond the End of the World 2019-2020
* Best Digital Media Award from Fingerlakes Environmental Film Festival 2019 for The River Runs Red
* Best Ethnographic Interactive Award from the American Anthropological Association 2018 for The River Runs Red
* Honorable Mention for Cultural Horizons Prize 2017 for Golden Snail Opera
* Berkeley Law Human Rights Fellowship Grant 2017 for The River Runs Red
* Georgetown University Environmental Initiative Grant 2017 for The River Runs Red
* Jessica Roy Award 2016 for The River Runs Red
* Best Director Award at IdyllWild Film Festival 2015 for Trashborn
* Best Editing Award at the BAWIFV Film Festival 2013 for Baffle Their Minds With Bullsh*t
* World Health Organization in Kampala, Uganda. Honorable mention Vietnam and Public Health 2008
* James H. Robertson Award for Photography and Studio Arts, Residential College University of Michigan 2007

## Film Festivals

| Year | Title | Festival |
| | [this is an incomplete list of screenings] | |
| 2022 | When Monsters Walked the Earth | Athens International Film Festival |
| 2020 | The Blessed Assurance | Georgia Documentary Film Festival |
| 2020 | The Blessed Assurance | Athens International Film Festival |
| 2019 | The Blessed Assurance | Big Sky Documentary Film Festival |
| 2019 | River Runs Red | Rio de Janeiro WebDoc |
| 2019 | River Runs Red | Seoul Webdoc |
| 2018 | River Runs Red | Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival |
| 2015 | Trashborn | IdyllWild Film Festival |
| 2014 | Trashborn | Documentary Film Festival in Dominican Republic |
| 2014 | Trashborn | Frozen River Film Festival |
| 2013 | Trashborn | Habana Film Festival (El Festival del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano) |
| 2013 | Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | BAWIFV Film Festival in San Francisco |
| 2013 | Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | Santa Monica Film Festival |
| 2013 | Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | College Town Film Festival |
| 2013 | Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | Annapolis Film Festival |
| 2013 | Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | Bethesda Film Festival |
| 2012 | Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | DC Shorts |
| 2012 | Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | DC Independent Film Festival |
| 2011 | Water Warriors | Water Rights Film Festival of Japan |
| 2008 | Palindrome | Ohio Independent Film Festival |
| 2008 | Mexico: Chasing the American Dream | New Filmmakers Latino Anthology |
| 2008 | Palindrome | Athens International Film and Video Festival |
| 2008 | Palindrome | Kansas City Jubilee Film Festival |
| 2008 | Palindrome | Washington DC Independent Film Festival |
| 2007 | Water Warriors | Environmental Water Festival, Japan |
| 2007 | Palindrome | Film Farm X Festival |
| 2007 | Mexico:Chasing the American Dream | Gasparilla Film Festival |

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Distributor |
| 2006 | Mexico: Chasing the American Dream | Izaca Productions |
| 2006 | NGO Crossing Borders in Vietnam | NGO Crossing Borders |
| 2007 | Palindrome | Izaca Productions |
| 2007 | Vietnam: Three Short Poems | Izaca Productions |
| 2007 | Water Warriors | Izaca Productions |
| 2007 | Shakespeare's Sonnet 2 | Izaca Productions |
| 2009 | Books Unbound: The Heritage Library in Qatar | Carnegie Mellon University & Qatar Foundation |
| 2010 | Zubarah | University of Copenhagen & Qatar Museums Authority |
| 2010 | Miki Flow: Cuban Hip Hop | Izaca Productions |
| 2010 | Tango in Jerash, Jordan | Izaca Productions |
| 2010 | 6 Day in Kazakhstan | iCarnegie |
| 2011 | Beirut International Tango Festival | Izaca Productions |
| 2011 | Trashborn | Passion River Distribution |
| 2011 | Mi Aldea Mi Langosta: My Village, My Lobster | Nomading Films |
| 2009/2012 | SHOOT.EDIT.SHARE, Experimental Ethnographic Shorts | Izaca Productions |
| 2012 | Baffle Their Minds With Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh | Izaca Productions |
| 2012 | The Souk of Aleppo | Izaca Productions |
| 2012 | Nepal: Prayer Wheels | Izaca Productions |
| 2013 | Las Palomas, Me Encantan (I Love Pigeons) | Izaca Productions |
| 2016/2019 | The Golden Snail Opera | Cultural Anthropology |
| 2018 | The River Runs Red | Izaca Productions |
| 2018 | The Blessed Assurance | Izaca Productions |
| 2019 | The Camel Race | Izaca Productions |
| 2020 | The Mississippi Multiverse | Izaca Productions / HKW Berlin |
| 2020 | Polyps are a Pluriverse | Izaca Productions / Feral Atlas |
| 2021 | A Mirror of the Earth | Izaca Productions |
| 2021 | A Mirror of the Cosmos | Izaca Productions / Princess Grace Awards |
| 2021 | When Monsters Walked the Earth | Izaca Productions / Imagine Science FF |

## Installations

| Year | Work Exhibited | Organization |
| | | [this is an incomplete list] |
| 2019 | Songs of Mud - audio | Poetics and Politics Symposium / University of California, Santa Cruz |
| 2016 | Tomo/veillance - audio | University of California, Santa Cruz Underwater Concert |