Alexis Gambis
Associate Professor of Film and New Media
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BA Bard College; PhD The Rockefeller University; MFA NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Research Areas: Animal Perspectives, Docu-Fiction, Magical Realism, Cine-microscopy, Genetics and Genomics, History of Science, Early and Scientific Cinema, Science New Wave
Alexis is a French-Venezuelan filmmaker and biologist. Blending documentary and fiction, his films explore animal perspectives, identity, and hybrid forms of scientific storytelling.
His debut feature, The Fly Room (2014), resurrects the pioneering insect genetics laboratory of the early 20th century, where fruit flies helped unlock the principles of heredity. His most recent feature, Son of Monarchs (2021), is a Mexican-American drama that delves into themes of identity, (im)migration, and evolution. A New York Times Critics' Pick, the film was praised for its "rich imagery [that] will be imprinted in your memory, returning to you in dreams." It received the Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and is currently streaming on HBO Max.
Alexis is currently developing two new film projects. Doctor Bacteria, a series adapted from Cuentos de Vacaciones (Vacation Stories) by the father of neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, explores the ethical implications of scientific progress through a hybrid lens of speculative fiction and scientific inquiry. Its first installment, El Jardín del Futuro — a short film supported by IBM and based on Cajal's short story The Corrected Pessimist — was completed during his Film Study Center-Harvard Fellowship and fuses the latest renderings of the brain’s architecture with dreamlike 16mm visions of microbial realms. His upcoming feature, Axolotl, a US–Mexican co-production, follows a biologist investigating the regenerative powers of a giant axolotl in a dying lagoon — where the creature may hold the key to healing both the Earth and herself.
Alexis launched the Science New Wave (SNW), a movement that celebrates singular approaches to scientific storytelling. Now in its 18th year, the SNW festival takes place every fall in New York, spotlighting the latest in scientific cinema. He also founded LABOCINE, a curated platform and evolving ecosystem that publishes monthly film issues, proposes a new model for institutional distribution, and shines a light on the people and processes behind research-driven cinema.
His work has been featured in numerous festivals, conferences, galleries, and media outlets, notably the Sundance Film Festival, TED, Nobel Prize Museum, dOCUMENTA, Nature, and The New York Times.