Javier Pérez-Osorio

Javier (he/him) is a queer Latin American film scholar. He holds a PhD in Film and Screen Studies from the University of Cambridge. Javier also holds an MA in Film and Film Cultures from the University of Leicester and a BA in Philosophy and Theology from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia).

Research Interests

My research examines Latin American cinema through an interdisciplinary lens that brings together queer theory, decolonial thinking, and film studies. I investigate how contemporary cinema represents sexual and gender dissidence on screen, challenging the dominance of Euro-American frameworks that have historically marginalised Latin American perspectives. Rather than viewing the region’s cinema as a site where foreign theories are simply applied, I position it as a space of knowledge production in its own right, where alternative epistemologies of queerness emerge from and speak to specifically Latin American contexts. My work employs both formal and thematic analysis to examine how films use innovative narrative and cinematic strategies to articulate non-normative sexualities and genders whilst resisting Western visibility politics. Through this decolonial approach, I aim to disrupt the unidirectional flow of theory from Global North to Global South, positioning Latin American thinkers and filmmakers as active participants in – and transformers of – global scholarly conversations about cinema, representation, and power.

Current Projects

My postdoctoral project, "From the Fringes to the Frame", examines the place of queerness in twenty-first-century Latin American documentary films: how do non-fiction films represent non-normative sexuality and gender, and how do non-normative sexuality and gender modify the continent’s non-fiction moving image? Combining archival research, interviews, and filmic analysis, I explore the queer inflexions of the subjective, political, and cross-genre characteristics of the region’s documentary film, re-centring the contribution of Latin American epistemological frameworks in the global projection of queerness. In doing so, the project addresses crucial issues, including identity politics, participation in nation-state projects, and the preservation of LGBTQ+ historical memory.

Noteworthy Outputs

• Pérez-Osorio, Javier and Karol Valderrama-Burgos, ‘Queer/Cuir Moments and “Que(e)rencias” in Colombian Narrative Cinema’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, (45:2), 2026. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.70069
• Pérez-Osorio, Javier, ‘Utopian Longings and Everyday Failures: Queer Latin American Artistic Practices in the UK’, Wasafiri (40:4): Presencia y Resistencia – British Latinx Writing and Art, 2025, pp. 35–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/02690055.2025.2551411 
• Pérez-Osorio, Javier, ‘From Thailand to Colombia: Medial and Geopolitical Crossings in Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria (2021)’, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 29–30, 2025, pp. 203–219. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.2930.11 
• Alexander, Lawrence, and Javier Pérez-Osorio. “Coming to Latin America: Moving Image Encounters, Non–Latin American Practitioners. Editorial.” Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 29–30, 2025, pp. 1–9. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.2930.00 
• Pérez-Osorio, Javier, ‘Deviant Sexualities, Dissident Citizenships: Queer Performances During El Paro (2019-2021)’, The Edinburgh Companion to Queer Reading, ed. Jeremy Chow and Declan Kavanagh, (Edinburgh University Press 2024), pp. 62–77. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399524810-007