Reel Borders studies how borders are imagined through film








Kevin Smets

Principle Investigator and project coordinator



Kevin Smets is associate professor at the Department of Communication Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and co-director of ECHO (Research group on Media, Culture & Politics). Trained in cultural history, he obtained a PhD in Film Studies and Visual Culture (University of Antwerp). His work mainly focuses on the intersections of media, migration and conflict. He has a long-standing interest in Turkey and has conducted fieldwork in Turkey, Germany and London. He has also been a visiting scholar at Bilgi University Istanbul, Freie Universität Berlin, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) London and University of Oxford.

At VUB, he teaches the course “Film history” and supervises master and PhD students. Previously he also taught other courses such as “Visual culture” and “Media, Culture & Globalization Theories” in Dutch and English.

He was vice-chair of the Diaspora, Migration & Media division of ECREA (European Communication Research & Education Association) from 2016 to 2021. He is also a member of the Jonge Academie of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, member of the general assembly of FARO, the Flemish Institution for Cultural Heritage, and a founding member of BIRMM (Brussels Interdisciplinary Research centre on Migration and Minorities).


More information on publications and other projects on Researchgate , Google Scholar and ORCID.








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Funded by the European Research Council.
Starting Grant #948278

The Reel Borders logo is designed by Joris Bochman
The Reel Borders website was built by Irene Gutiérrez and Silvia Almenara-Niebla