Elena Gorfinkel is Reader in Film Studies at King's College London. Prior she was Associate Professor of Art History & Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and earned a PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University.

In her research and teaching she explores post-war and post-1960s independent cinema in the United States as well as the histories of marginal filmmaking practices. Her special interest lies in women’s filmmaking and the topics of sexuality, materiality and temporality. She has curated film screenings and programmes in the U.K. and the U.S.

Gorfinkel writes and publishes for academic journals as well as for publications such as Criterion, Sight & Sound, Art Monthly, Cinemascope and others. Some of her most prominent books are Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation Cinema in the 1960s (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) and the co-published issues Global Cinema Networks (Rutgers University Press, 2018) as well as Taking Place: Location and the Moving Image (University of Minnesota Press, 2011).