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BIFF + CDN: The Shadow Scholars (2024)

A person sitting between rows of book shelves at a library.
Based on the research of Oxford professor Patricia Kingori, THE SHADOW SCHOLARS explores the implications of talented Africans performing academic work for less gifted and/or disciplined Westerners for no credit and little money. The result is a thought-provoking and engaging documentary about cheating, post-colonial economic structures and the value of academic work. Foto: The SHadows Scholars/Eloise King

What would Western academia look like without badly paid Kenyan ghostwriters? Find out in THE SHADOW SCHOLARS.

"Through the eyes of a determined researcher, we are drawn into a world where colonial hierarchies quietly persist; not in distant territories but in the essays and assignments quietly produced for students at the world’s most prestigious universities," said the jury of Golden Owl Prize about this movie at the 2025 Bergen International Film Festival.

Eloise King's award-winning THE SHADOW SCHOLARS explores the global industry of academic ghost-writing via Oxford professor Patricia Kingori's research on Kenyan ghost writers. Combining the stories of Kenyan ghost writers with Kingori's own struggles within academia, THE SHADOW SCHOLARS brings into question the equity of a global system where talented Africans, unable to leave their home countries, perform the academic work of Westerners who cannot or do not want to complete the work on their own.

This thought-provoking documentary is a must-see for anybody concerned with academic integrity and the rise of AI.
Doors open at 12:30, screening starts at 13:00. Expected end-time is 15:00.

This screening of last year's Golden Owl Prize leads up to Bergen International Film Festival, running 14.-22. October 2026.

About the Center for Digital Narrative (CDN)

CDN is a Norwegian Centre of Research Excellence funded by the Norwegian Research Council from 2023-2033. CDN focuses on algorithmic narrativity, new environments and materialities, and shifting cultural contexts. We will investigate how the interactions of human authors with non-human agents result in new narrative forms, how the materiality of digital narratives has changed, and how cultural contexts are reshaping the use and function of digital narrative. 

CDN hosts approximately 40 funded and affiliated researchers and regularly hosts international guest researchers at all career stages.

Read more about CDN here

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Hanna Lauvli