Leila Peighambarzadeh

Leila Peighambarzadeh is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies in Semiotics at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), where her doctoral work is dedicated to cinema and film studies. She previously completed a PhD in Iran on the contemporary novel, drawing on the sociology of culture to examine how cultural forms both emerge from their social contexts and shape the ways societies understand themselves. This interest in the relationship between culture, meaning, and social life now informs her work on cinema: through a semio-pragmatic approach, she explores how films are understood and interpreted in different contexts.

Her research brings together feminist theory, media studies, and semiotics to examine cinematic representations of gender-based violence, including femicide, with a particular focus on Iranian film. She is especially interested in questions of visibility and in how different interpretations of films take shape, gain acceptance, or come into question. Her broader interests include documentary cinema, women’s experiences on screen, and the portrayal of contemporary social issues. She conducts research and publishes in Persian, French, and English.

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