Liz Banks
Position: Senior Lecturer: Photography, Film and Moving Image
School: Arts, College of Arts, Technology and Environment (CATE)
Qualifications: MA Art Media and Design (Film) Distinction (UWE), Advanced Diploma in Media Production (Film) Merit (Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design), BA Hons English (Birmingham University)
About me
Liz is a senior lecturer in Photography and moving image. Her film studies background and ongoing experience as a filmmaker provides students with a wide range of skills and knowledge for work in the photographic industry.
Liz graduated from Bournemouth Film School and then trained as a researcher, editor and director at the BBC. Since then she has worked as an independent filmmaker directing and producing documentaries and short drama for the BBC, ITV and the UK Film Council. Her films have been supported by the British Council and screened at film festivals around the world. Since completing her MA, her practice has evolved into experimental moving image for the gallery, with exhibitions in the UK.
She co-founded Bath Community Television and continues to work in the community sector as a mentor and workshop facilitator for young filmmakers and women entering the film industry. Liz has worked with Bristol Old Vic Theatre School directing acting students, as well as Somerset Film and Video and Calling the Shots as a guest speaker and workshop leader on scripting and directing. For the past three years she has taught screenwriting and storyboarding on the BFI funded Film Academy Bristol course for 16 -25 yr olds, where films have gone on to win awards at young people’s film festivals in Poland.
Since 2014 Liz has been invited to speak to Bristol University medical students about her own work and films around mental health issues as part of the films and psychology course run by Avon and Wiltshire NHS and Bristol Mental Health. Her film Look Up was selected for screening at Exploring Dementia Through Film conferences in Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol University.
Liz’s practice often draws from her own experience, her films tend to be personal and experiential – seeking to capture a feeling or connection to place. She is interested in an inter-disciplinary, collaborative way of working that can encompass phenomenology, cultural geography, oral history and mental health. A recent return to photography has led her to re-evaluate the image and ways of looking, making process & research methods more important. She is keen to experiment with mixing still and moving image, documentary, drama and archive to a produce more interesting outcomes to her work.
Area of expertise
Moving Image & Artist Films. Personal filmmaking, documentary, short film-making (fiction and docs), screenwriting, pitching to broadcasters/funders.