Karine Bertrand

My interest for cinema and films in general came from watching old black and white movies with my grandma on PBS on Sunday afternoons. Beyond these old Hollywood narratives, I have grown to love films stemming from all parts of the world. More recently, my research interests have been centered on Quebec cinema (intercultural collaborations), Indigenous films and poetry, road movies, transnational cinemas and oral practices of cinema.  

I am also a member of the Vulnerable Media Lab at Queen’s and lead researcher for the Archive/Counter-Archive research project (financed by SSHRC) working with the Arnait Video Productions collective of Inuit women and with Québécois filmmaker Marie-Hélène Cousineau. I am co-director of the research group EPIC (esthétique et politique de l’image cinématographique) where we discuss the politics and aesthetics of screen images. My latest publications include a book chapter on the rock group U2 ( MacKenzie and Iversen, 2021) a book chapter on the exploration of Indigenous lands (Cahill and Caminati, 2020) an article on Indigenous women and testimonies (Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 2020) on Québécois cinema and Americanité (American Review of Canadian Studies, 2019) and a book chapter on Canadian and Québécois Indigenous cinemas (Oxford Handbook to Canadian Cinema, 2019). I am presently working on a project involving the creation of an international network for Indigenous women filmmakers, and continuing  partnerships with the Wapikoni Mobile and the INAAC (the International Network for Aboriginal Audio-Visual Creation).  

Besides my research, which I am very passionate about, I love to be outdoors, connecting with nature. I have studied medicinal plants and take every occasion I get to play outside; canoeing, hiking, skiing, camping, gardening. I also love writing poetry and teaching courses where I can develop a strong connection with my students. 

Selected Bibliography

Bertrand, Karine. “U2’s Rattle and Hum: God, Sex, Rock and Roll, and God again” in MacKenzie, Scott and Iverson, Gunnar, Images and Sounds of Fury: Mapping the Rockumentary, Edinburgh University Press, 2021.

Bertrand, Karine. “L’œuvre documentaire d’Alanis Obomsawin et la voix des femmes autochtones.” Book chapter for the monograph entitled “De l’exclusion à la solidarité. Regards intersectionnels sur les médias” (Josette Brun, Ed.) Les Éditions Remue-Ménage, 2020.

Bertrand, Karine. “From Pierre Perrault to Wim Wenders: Auteur Cinema and the Poetic Exploration of Indigenous Lands and Identities” in Caminati, Luca and James Leo Cahill, Cinemas of Exploration: Essays on an Adventurous Film Practice, AFI/Routledge, 2020.

Bertrand, Karine. “Auto-histoires et représentations communautaires dans le cinéma des femmes autochtones.” in Revue canadienne d’études cinématographiques, vol. 29, Issue 1, Spring 2020, p. 69-89.

Bertrand, Karine. “L’énonciation épistolaire dans le cinéma québécois et autochtone contemporain” in Área Abierta. Revista de comunicación audiovisual y publicitaria, vol. 19, no.3, 2019, p. 307-326.

Bertrand, Karine. “Le cinéma autochtone au Québec, entre représentation et ré-appropriation” in Contemporary French Civilization, vol. 44, issue 2-3, 2019, p. 221-240.

Bertrand Karine and Baillargeon, Mercédès (eds.). “Introduction: Transnationalisme et cinéma Québécois” in Contemporary French Civilization, vol.44, issue 2-3, 2019, p.137-150.

Bertrand, Karine. “De Gilles Groulx à Jean-Marc Vallée: Transnationalisme, Américanité et territoire dans le cinéma québécois” in American Review of Canadian Studies, February 2019, p. 43-63.

Bertrand, Karine. “Martha of the North and Nunavik Narratives of Survivance” in Kaganovsky Lilya, MacKenzie, Scott and Westerståhl Stenport, Anna, Arctic Cinemas and the Documentary Ethos, Bloomington Indiana: Indiana Press, 2019, p. 289-301.

Bertrand, Karine. “Canadian Indigenous Cinema: from Alanis Obomsawin to the Wapikoni Mobile” in Marchessault, Janine and Straw, Will, The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, p. 105-124.

Bertrand, Karine. ‘‘Politiques et poétiques du langage : l’inuktitut et le corps-verbal dans le cinéma inuit’’ in TranscUlturAl, Vo. 10, no. 1, 2018, p. 29-44.

Bertrand, Karine. “Le collectif Arnait Video Productions et le cinéma engagé des femmes inuit: guérison communautaire et mémoire culturelle” in Revue canadienne de littérature comparée, Vol. 44 Issue 1, 2017, p. 36-53.