Igor Karim

Igor Karim is a research associate specializing in film theory, scientific film, and ethnographic film production in the Amazon region. He is part of the research project "Amazon of Rights" and the EcoPol research group. He studied Anthropology at the University of Brasília, Brazil, and Visual Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin. He is currently completing a doctorate in Film and Media Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. His dissertation explores ontological questions concerning the socio-technical aspects of ethnographic film production, film aesthetics, and institutional ideologies in film financing.

Since 2017, he has worked as a lecturer in Film Studies and Visual Anthropology at Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, Plateau State University of Jos/Nigerian Film Corporation in Nigeria, and Freie Universität Berlin. From 2016 to 2023, he was a research associate at the TFM Institute and the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt. His main research areas include socio-technical approaches to film production, speculative fiction, media and film philosophy, and media anthropology.

Over the past five years, his research has covered a range of topics, including ethnographic filmmaking, the anthropology of techniques, film restitution, archival and found-footage film, Third Cinema, and film pedagogy for social workers.

He has produced scientific documentary films in French Guiana, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Dubai. Additionally, he has worked in science communication for the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in collaboration with MIT, the Wikimedia Foundation, iRights.info, and the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt.