Christopher Pavsek

Christopher Pavsek is a film scholar and filmmaker living in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he is an associate professor of film in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.

His recent filmmaking has focussed on the landscapes of the desert southwest and their representation in photography and experimental film. His recent video installation, "Scenes from Deseret" (2022), and a feature experimental documentary, "News from Deseret" (currently in post-production), are components of a project inspired by the structuralist filmmaking of James Benning, in particular his film Deseret (1995). His past filmmaking has examined the political legacies of the attacks of September 11 in the US, the AIDS epidemic in Vietnam, and his daughter's enthusiasm for food. His book, The Utopia of Film (2013), is a study of the utopian impulses in the cinema of Jean-Luc Godard, Alexander Kluge, and Kidlat Tahimik. Chris holds a PhD in Literature from Duke University and a Master's in Resource and Environmental Management from Simon Fraser University. In his creative work he strives to bring together the insights of critical theory, aesthetics, and the (social) science of conservation that he has gained through his diverse academic training.