Saara Tuusa is a doctoral researcher in Gender Studies and Film Studies in a funded position (2022-2025) at the University of Turku. She gained her master's degree from Film and Television Studies from the University of Helsinki in 2021 and her bachelor's degree with First Class Honours in Media and Communication Studies from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2016. 

Her doctoral research studies the "committed filmmaker" as an embodied and situated agent in European film production cultures, especially in arthouse and indie productions. The data in the case-study based ethnographic research is comprised of following the making of three theatrically released, majority-public funded feature-length fiction films. The study analyses how the "committed" screenwriter-director's authorship is formed in the process of filmmaking in relation to other filmmakers, the material environment, technologies and the history and discourses surrounding filmmaking and authorship, as well as in relation to contemporary European production cultures and broader societal structures and discourses. 

Current research projects:

• Embodied film authorship - a phenomenological study (2022-2025, Doctoral research project, University of Turku)
• Information about the study (incl. Privacy Notice) https://tinyurl.com/embodiedfilm  

Principal teacher: 

• Gender, Art, Experience (Fall 2024)
• Nordic Gendered Norms and Practices (Spring 2024)

Lecturer on courses:

• Feminist Theory (Fall 2023)
  
• Nordic Gendered Norms and Practices (Spring 2023)
  
• Feminist Cultural Studies (Fall 2022)