I am an artist-filmmaker and educator whose work investigates place, community and the ecologies of the moving image. My films, installations and research projects draw on collaborative, participatory and experimental methodologies, with a particular focus on socio-participatory filmmaking, archival practice and contemporary re-imaginings of Imperfect Cinema. I am also interested in how evolving tools and production cultures can expand the possibilities of moving-image storytelling.

 

My research has received national and international recognition, with support from the BFI, The Box and the AHRC IAA. My work has been exhibited, screened and published internationally across galleries, festivals and research platforms. Recent film projects include A Film for Gwynfi (2025); RE/POSIT/ORY (2024), a BFI-commissioned five-screen installation interrogating archival bias and now accessioned into The Box’s permanent collection; and STADE (2022), exhibited as part of Because the Night Belongs to Us.

 

I am co-founder and co-director of Imperfect Cinema, a long-running collective recognised as a practice research environment. Through more than 800 collaboratively produced films and over 100 public events, our work operates at the intersection of film, heritage, environmental humanities, civic research and digital cultures.

 

I contribute to postgraduate research through supervision, external examining and research symposia. My current work focuses on developing film projects for cinema, gallery and multi-platform environments, alongside new interdisciplinary projects in archival return, civic storytelling and experimental approaches to contemporary filmmaking.

Allister teaches on the BA (Hons) and MA Filmmaking programmes, focusing on short filmmaking, Imperfect Cinema (experimental and punk process-based film practice) and Film Production, the major undergraduate final film project. He draws on wider experience teaching creative moving-image practice, screenwriting, directing and screen performance across MA Creative Writing, Media Arts and film programmes. His teaching supports students through research and context, idea development, directing, visual and sound strategies, post-production, documentary practice and experimental/process-led filmmaking, alongside the supervision of major final film projects. He also incorporates approaches influenced by contemporary film practice, poetic documentary and experimental and dramatic forms of filmmaking. 

 

In addition, Allister supports postgraduate research and has supervised Ed Whitfield’s PhD in Creative Writing to completion (2025), a project combining a novel with a critical study of participatory culture in fandom and the historiographic fragmentation of popular culture through Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon. He is also Director of Studies for Patrycja Loranc, whose PhD practice-based research explores neurodivergence, sensory experience and experimental filmmaking methods.