Nicholas Balaisis is a doctoral candidate in the Joint Programme in Communication and Culture at York University, now in his third year of study.  He has worked as a graduate researcher at the Visible City project since 2004.

Nicholas' primary area of research is the role of film in the public sphere, with a particular focus on film spectatorship and citizen building.  His previous research has examined the writing of Italian film theorist Cesare Zavattini and the role of cinema in the reconstruction of post-war Italian civil society.  He has also recently examined the phenomenological aspects of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, arguing that his particular use of the car in many of his films opens up new ways for considering both visual perception and public space in modern day Iran.  His dissertation explores the role of mobile cinema ('Cine-Movil') in post-revolutionary Cuba, focusing on the ways that the state initiated film campaign and its itinerant exhibition sites contributed to the formation of a modern, alternative public sphere.

Nicholas is currently a teaching assistant in the department of film at York and has recently instructed a course in the department, European Cinema to 1960.