Film & Media Studies

This course addresses the effective use of cloud technology in digital cultural and creative projects including: versatile digital publishing, website design, web community development, digital imaging, animation, video and media production management. As a specific objective, we emphasize to cap off a team project more than an individual task. This course takes account of the inter-discipline of humanities and information technology through media application. The learning method focuses on problem solving oriented approach. The learning activity designates a hands-on assignment and requires a complete output in the form of publishable presentation.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course is based on the sociological analysis of a selection of films produced in Italy from the end of World War II to the ‘80s with the aim of using Italian movies as telescopes on the past and to reflect on the present of Italian culture, from both the historical and social point of view. At the end of the course, students have knowledge about: Italian cinema from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1980s; political and social transformations from the early 1900s to the 1980s; elements of Italian history from 1900 to post-war period; notions regarding sociological and anthropological models, necessary to interpret social transformations in Italy in the period under analysis. Some of the most important movies of Italian film history are screened such as 900, ROME OPEN CITY, LA DOLCE VITA, BREAD AND CHOCOLATE. This is a sociology course on Italian culture, in which movies are used as data as well as a stimulus for the debate. In addition, another level of analysis concerns the styles, the schools and the directors of the films selected, and the technical and social contexts that influence the different styles. In this light, students consider mass communication linguistic techniques (figures of speech, metaphors, analogies), to identify both clear and hidden messages in movies. The course includes traditional lectures, film screenings, and audiovisual materials.

At the center of this course is film as historical sources. The course presents and applies the methods for analyzing audiovisual sources, and it examines how historical events were depicted. Using the example of the history of National Socialism, students examine both documentaries and feature films with regard to their handling of National Socialism and its (audio) visual legacy.

This course introduces a broad spectrum of performance practices that may be identified as local cultural expressions found in Singapore. Such practices occur in varied spaces and mediums, and include street opera, getai [song-stage], animal performances, theatre, film, religious festivals, national day parades, YouTube video performances and mobile gaming. The course explores the rich performative histories of these practices and studies concepts of performativity, liveness, and mediation. It also covers the ways in which technology and media play a crucial part in cultural expression and identity formation. 

Contemporary Middle Eastern cinema reflects the social, political and cultural challenges in the region, while revealing the revolutionary spirit of its filmmakers and their filmic language. This course defines dominant themes such as: territory, cultural identity, memory, modernism, religion, feminism, internal conflict and socio-political violence, within both historical and present political contexts. Filmmakers include: Chahine, Saab, Kiarostami, Farhadi, Gitai, Maoz, Folman, Doueiri, Khleifi, Assad, Güney, and Ceylan, dealing with the challenges of Egypt, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and Turkey. Basic film analysis terms and cultural theories are covered in order to study and articulate the form as well as content of these films. While addressing the larger question of the relationship between aesthetics and politics, this course encourages students to consider the analysis of film as a participant in social and political change.

This course examines the foundational principles of contemporary media production. It focuses on three areas of media production; graphic design, animation and interaction design. It also studies the applied theories and techniques involved in creating contemporary media productions and current tools and strategies for a range of media contexts.

This course examines the Australian identity through an exploration of Australian film, theater, and television traditional formats and new digital content and delivery platforms. It focuses on young Australian playwrights, performers and filmmakers, and the range of learning that takes place through young people's engagement in, and appreciation of, theater, film, television and digital content. A variety of genre, formats and delivery are critically examined against the backdrop of Australian historical and sociological perspectives. Critical analysis is undertaken, not only through deconstructing Australian films and plays, but also through constructing digital content, using smart phone video application. 

This course addresses how history has been punctuated by civil resistance and disobedience movements whose characteristics, combats, tools, and arms get more sophisticated, shared, and reinvented as time moves forward. It identifies the news as a marker of movements of citizen protest, social opposition, demonstrations (such as Climate), and other acts of disobedience. From Thoreau to Gandhi, from Martin Luther King to the Extinction Rebellion movement, from Radio London (1940-1944) to the fight for the Larzac or the ZAD of Notre-Dames-des-Landes, this course explores how specific movements are born and fed and how media plays a role in the development or the resonance of these actions, from yesterday's press to modern platforms. The course includes analysis, readings, and deconstruction of what is called “civil disobedience and resistance,” in both democracies and authoritarian countries, from yesterday to today.

Japan is one of the world's leading film production powerhouses with countless films produced from the silent era to the present, from artistic to entertainment pieces. This course looks at the history of Japanese films and discusses the unique appeal and problems of Japanese films.