Film historian and critic Dita Rietuma holds a PhD in art sciences from the University of Latvia (2013), by defending a thesis on the development and influence of the stylistic phenomenon film noir in world and European cinema culture. Rietuma has participated in many studies of the film industry, as well as publishing in the press on a regular basis, and reflection of contemporary film processes, accumulating substantial experience in the field of cinema theory and analysis. Dita Rietuma’s research interests cover a wide range of topics – topicalities of world cinema culture, historical processes, as well as the development of national cinema. Dita Rietuma is also an assistant professor at Riga Stradiņš University, council of board of the Academy of Art of Latvia and researcher of Latvian Academy of Culture. From 1993 to 2014, Rietuma was the editor and film critic of Latvia’s biggest daily newspaper Diena. Since 2014, Rietuma has been freelance film critic for the edition KDi (Cultural Diena), the supplement of the newspaper Diena. Rietuma is author (or co-author) of six books about the history of world cinema and since 2014 has worked at National Film Centre of Latvia. Rietuma is the member of European Film Academy since 2014 and established the Latvian branch of FIPRESCI (in 1995).