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John Winn is a filmmaker, writer, educator, and curator. John has screened his films globally, including at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Fracto Experimental Film Encounter, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Transient Visions: Festival of the Moving Image, Festival ECRÃ, San Diego Underground Film Festival, Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, non-syntax Experimental Image Festival, and Cosmic Rays Film Festival.

John has published a number of essays and articles on cinema, including a forthcoming article in Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture. He has a PhD from the Program in Literature at Duke University.

John is also an instructor of cinema and media, having taught and designed college courses on film theory, environmental aesthetics, global cinema, and popular genres.

As a curator, John worked as Assistant Programmer for Screen/Society at Duke University from 2022 to 2026, where he organized hundreds of screenings ranging from Howard Hawks’s Hatari!, on 35mm IB-Technicolor, to Margaret Tait’s personal portraits.

Education

2018-2026 | Ph.D. Program in Literature, Duke University

Dissertation: “Excavating an Image: Cinema and the American West”

Screenings and Exhibitions

Solo Screenings

2024

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative, New York, NY, “Facing West: Six Short Films by John Winn”
DePauw University, Greencastle, IN, “Facing West: Six Short Films by John Winn”

Festival Screenings (Official Selection)

2026

Festival Ecrā, Rio, Brazil, Frail Hope
Fracto Experimental Film Encounter, Berlin, Germany, Redwood Souvenirs
Iowa City Documentary Film Festival, Iowa City, IA, Redwood Souvenirs
San Diego Underground Film Festival, San Diego, CA, Redwood Souvenirs

2025

Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing, China, Redwood Souvenirs
Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing, China, Frail Hope
Revolutions per Minute Festival, Boston, MA, Redwood Souvenirs
American Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland, Ode to R.G. Springsteen
CineSalon Experimental Film Festival, Cork, Ireland, Ode to R.G. Springsteen
I Mille Occhi International Film Festival, Trieste, Italy, Ray’s Place
Weekend Domain Experimental Image Festival, Guangzhou, China, Ode to R.G. Springsteen
Cosmic Rays Film Festival, Chapel Hill, NC, Ode to R.G. Springsteen
San Diego Underground Film Festival, San Diego, CA, weak signal
International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands, Ode to R.G. Springsteen

2024

Transient Visions Festival of the Moving Image, Johnson City, NY, weak signal
Non-syntax Experimental Image Festival, Taipei, Taiwan, Ode to R.G. Springsteen
I Mille Occhi International Film Festival, Trieste, Italy, Ode to R.G. Springsteen
Sudbury Tiny Underground Film Festival, Sudbury, Canada, weak signal
CineSalon Experimental Film Festival, Cork, Ireland, Landskip
Ivano-Frankivsk International Short Film Festival 4:3, Ivano-Fankivsk, Ukraine, weak signal
Kansas City Underground Film Festival, Kansas City, MO, weak signal
Laterale Film Festival, Cosenza, Italy, Red River Nonsites
Cactus Club Independent Film Festival, Milwaukee, WI, weak signal
Revelation Perth International Film Festival, Perth, Australia, Red River Nonsites
Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, Winnipeg, Canada, weak signal

2023

Non-syntax Experimental Image Festival, Tokyo, Japan, Landskip
Laterale Film Festival, Cosenza, Italy, Seven Images of Disappearance
West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival, Morgantown, WV, Reservoir (Seven Fragments)
San Diego Underground Film Festival – Heavy Light, San Diego, CA, out of touch (franklinia still life)
Cosmic Rays Film Festival, Chapel Hill, NC, Reservoir (Seven Fragments)
Unnamed Footage Festival, San Francisco, CA, out of touch (franklinia still life)

2022

Transient Visions Festival of the Moving Image, Johnson City, NY, Invocations for Spring
Kansas City Underground Film Festival, Kansas City, MO, Reservoir (Seven Fragments)
Revelation Perth International Film Festival, Perth, Australia, Reservoir (Seven Fragments)
Cosmic Rays Film Festival, Chapel Hill, NC, Parergon

Other Screenings

2025

Art Cinema OFFoff, Westerns (curated by Gijs Suy), Ghent, Belgium, Red River Nonsites
Film-Makers’ Cooperative’s New Year / New Work Festival, New York, NY, Red River Nonsites
Millennium Film Workshop – Project Intimacy (curated by Priyanka Das and Joe Wakeman), New York, NY, Landskip
Cosmic Rays Benefit Screening, Chapel Hill, NC, Parergon

2024

4:3 Festival Tour, Ivano-Frankivsk International Short Film Festival 4:3, Budynok Kino (Cinema House), Kyiv, Ukraine, weak signal
4:3 Festival Tour, Ivano-Frankivsk International Short Film Festival 4:3, Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture (DCCC), Dnipro, Ukraine, weak signal
American Avant-Garde (curated by Tomonari Nishikawa), Tokyo, Japan, Landskip
Almaty Underground Screening Series, Almaty, Kazakhstan, weak signal

2023

American Landscapes, Ikueikan University (curated by Tomonari Nishikawa), Hokkaido, Japan, Reservoir (Seven Fragments)
EXPOSURE, Kopernik Observatory & Science Center (curated by Tomonari Nishikawa), Vestal, NY, Parergon
A New Wave Theory, Acinema Experimental Film Series (curated by Janelle VanderKelen and Takahiro Suzuki), Milwaukee, WI, Parergon
Millennium Film Workshop, New York, NY, Invocations for Spring; Reservoir (Seven Fragments); Parergon

2017

NTS Radio, Online, Closet Ecology (with Aaron Dowdy)

Publications about Winn’s Films

Publications

Published Articles (Peer-Reviewed)

“The Landscape View: Survey Photography and John Ford’s Wagon Master.” Discourse. Forthcoming.
Co-authored w/ Aaron Dowdy. “The Edge of Linear Cinema.” Media Fields Journal 14 (2019).

Book Reviews

“Review of Camera Geologica.” Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus. 2025.
“Review of The Landscapes of Western Movies.” New Review of Film and Television Studies. 2023.

Interviews and Popular Press

“Interview with Philip Rosen.” Polygraph Journal 30 (2025). Forthcoming.
“Traces of Postindian Survivance: Two Short Films by Jeff Barnaby.” Film International (2016).

Conferences and Talks

Conferences

“Rendering the Range: Howard Hawks and the Cattle Western.” SCMS. 2025.
“The Geological Film Theory of Robert Smithson.” SCMS. 2023.
“Timothy O’Sullivan, Interpretive Excess, and the Western Landscape.” World Picture. 2022.
“The Ecological Modernism of John Ford.” SCMS. 2022.
“Envisioning Extraction: Timothy O’Sullivan and the Geological Survey.” SLSA. 2021.
“The Lines of Cinema: Deleuze and Artaud.” SCMS. 2021.
“Organicism and Cinema: Busby Berkeley.” World Picture. 2019.
“An Accidental Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” SCMS. 2019.
Co-presented w/ Aaron Dowdy. “Twentieth Century Lines: An Image of Sensual Form.” Sensing Media, University of Chicago. 2018.
“Medial Conversations.” MAPH Works in Progress. 2017.

Other Talks

Introducer. Bend of the River. MoMA. 2026
Respondent. “Facing West: Six Short Films by John Winn.” Film-Makers’ Cooperative. 2024
Introducer and Respondent. “Facing West: Six Short Films by John Winn.” DePauw University. 2024
Introducer and Respondent. “Cosmic Rays Film Festival Tour, 2023.” UnionDocs. 2024
Introducer. “Cosmic Rays Film Festival Tour, 2022.” UnionDocs. 2023
Introducer and Respondent. “The Lines of Fernand Deligny’s Le Moindre Geste.” Film in Theory, Duke University. 2018

Teaching

Teacher of Record

Primary Instructor, “Film Genres,” Cinematic Arts, Duke University, Spring 2026
Primary Instructor, “Middle Eastern Cinema,” Cinematic Arts, Duke University, Fall 2025
Primary Instructor, “American Film Comedy,” Cinematic Arts, Duke University, Fall 2024
Primary Instructor, “Film Theory,” Program in Literature, Duke University, Spring 2024
Primary Instructor, “Cinema and the Environment,” Program in Literature, Duke University, Spring 2022

Teaching Assistant

Teaching Assistant, “Introduction to Digital Culture,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Luciana Parisi, Program in Literature, Duke University, Fall 2021
Teaching Assistant, “Social Movements/Social Media,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Negar Mottahedeh, Program in Literature, Duke University, Spring 2021
Teaching Assistant, “Bad Behavior,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Nima Bassiri, Program in Literature, Duke University, Fall 2020
Teaching Assistant, “Understanding Mediation,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Markos Hadjioannou, Program in Literature, Duke University, Spring 2020
Teaching Assistant, “Narrative and Ideology,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Fredric Jameson, Program in Literature, Duke University, Fall 2019

Guest Lecturer

Guest Lecturer, “The Western,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Joshua Harold Wiebe, Cinema Studies, University of Toronto, Fall, 2025
Guest Lecturer, “The Western Film: History, Mythology, and Ideology,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Jordan Sjol, Film and Media Arts, DePauw University, Fall, 2024
Guest Lecturer, “The Western,” Primary Instructor: Prof. Joshua Harold Wiebe, Cinema Studies, University of Toronto, Summer, 2024

Other Teaching Assignments

Writing Consultant, Thompson Writing Program, Duke University, 2025-2026

Curatorial Work

Assistant Programmer, Screen/Society, Duke University, 2022-2026
Programmer, Duke Experimental Film Society, Duke University, 2022-2025
Programmer, Cosmic Rays 2023 Film Festival Tour
Programmer, Cosmic Rays 2022 Film Festival Tour

Editorial Work

Issue Editor, Polygraph Journal, 2024-2025
Member of Editorial Collective, Polygraph Journal, 2020-2025
Member of Editorial Collective, Narrow Margin, 2024-present

Academic Service

Member, Cinematic Arts Curriculum Development Working Group, Duke University, 2025
Research Assistant, Prof. Markos Hadjioannou, Program in Literature, Duke University, Fall, 2023
Secretary, “Film Philosophy” Scholarly Interest Group, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), 2019-2022
Research Assistant, Prof. Markos Hadjioannou, Program in Literature, Duke University, Fall 2018-Spring 2019
Research Assistant, Prof. Mark Hansen, Program in Literature, Duke University, Spring, 2019

Film Distribution

Film-Makers’ Cooperative