Sam Bodamer is a PhD student in the joint Slavic and Film and Media Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include Soviet national cinemas of the Thaw-era, Soviet and independent cinema of the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, The Riga School of Poetic Documentary, 20th century art cinema, and modernism in film. She received her BA in Russian and East European Studies and Film Studies from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Interdisciplinary Studies at Hunter College.