Kersti Grunditz Brennan

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Belgium, Sweden (residence), Sweden (citizenship) °1966
research interests: filmmaking, film editing, dancefilm, moving images, cinematic storytelling, Film studies, physical cinema, character development, collaborative practice
affiliation: LUCA School of Arts / KU Leuven
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I am currently professor of audiovisual art at LUCA School of Art/KU Leuven. I have explored film form in documentary and fiction live action, short and long formats, narrative cinema, archival based stories, essays and experimental hybrids for the past 20 years; for cinema, other art contexts, through research and education. I hold a PhD in Perfomative and media based practices, an MFA in choreography, is an established film editor of several award-winning documentaries and has directed documentaries about prominent Scandinavian artists and the festival touring, award winning film The Man Behind the Throne; about Michael Jackson’s choreographer Vincent Paterson; sold to 15 countries. In 2017, I was nominated for Best Editing and Best Screenplay at Swedish film awards (Guldbaggen) and for Best documentary at Swedish TV awards (Kristallen) for the feature documentary Citizen Schein, which she edited and co-wrote. She takes on many different creative and educational roles in film processes ranging from movies, TV, art exhibits and stage performances to workshops, research expositions, conference presentations and academic writing.

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research expositions

  • Beyond Cut and Join - Expanding the creative role of film editing (2023) author(s): Kersti Grunditz Brennan published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
    The research project Beyond Cut and Join – Expanding the creative role of film editing comes out of two major observations over decades of professional film editing experience: that a lot of film editing’s potential is untapped in filmmaking, especially in relation to character creation; and that editors’ skills, influence and authorial participation often are misunderstood and undervalued. Through editing practice and writing, this research explores an expanded role of editing by asking: 1. what can editing do to create characters; 2. what is a useful and challenging creative research design for exploring editing; and 3. what expanded description of film editing can be articulated for these explorations. The project aims to share, refine, and add to editing vocabulary by articulating creative strategies for shaping characters. It further aims to challenge notions of authorship in cinema by developing collaborative structures and artistic methods that benefit creative processes in the edit room. By demonstrating how significant the handprint of one individual editor is, the project’s final aim is to highlight the extent to which editors’ personal experiences influence their choices in composition of material. Outcomes of this project are filmmaking methods that place editing and collaboration in the forefront when weaving dramaturgy, aesthetics, and content creation processes that shape film characters and cinematic stories. The output of this research includes films, academic articles, personal essays, a video essay, and pedagogic applications. These outputs cumulatively demonstrate the artistry of the editor and the significance of editing.
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