Matthew Ellis is a writer, researcher, and artist based out of Portland, Oregon. Currently, he teaches film and media studies at Portland State University, and co-hosts the weekly cinema podcast The Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Moviefilm Podcast. Matt also writes and performs music for A Hope For Home, formerly a Facedown Records/Sony Music affiliate. His writing has appeared in publications such as Jump Cut, Parapraxis, and MUBI’s Notebook, and he publishes a newsletter on Substack titled Histories of the Present. He is also currently at work on a book project, tentatively titled Against the History Machine: American Culture After Accumulation, focused on the political economy of twenty-first century artistic production and historical consciousness.

As a Cinejourneys guide, Matt is passionate about bringing the insights of academic film studies outside the walls of the university: his programs are designed to put you in conversation with big ideas from film scholars in a fun and accessible manner; he believes that everyone who follows cinema in today’s media environment is already a film theorist and historian. He hopes to see you in a class sometime soon!