Film & Media Studies

This course provides an intensive study of the craft of directing for film and television, independent filmmaking, and audiovisual creation with an emphasis on scriptwriting, production planning, creative development, and the shooting and editing of short video works. It uses in-class exercises, theory, technical classes, and film screenings and discussions. At the end of the course, students produce a final video project.

This course introduces students to the formal characteristics of film, to acquire a critical vocabulary for describing and analyzing films and to gain practice in discussing and writing about them. This is achieved by focusing on a range of narrative films, examining the various visual, aural, and narrative conventions by which they create meaning and practicing film analysis through discussion and written work. Issues of mise-en-scène, framing, cinematography, editing, sound, narrative structure, and point of view will be discussed as key components of cinematic style and meaning.

Crises such as the German Occupation, the Algerian War of Independence, and the strikes and riots of May 1968 sent shock waves through French society that sooner or later found their way into literature and film. This course examines how French writers and filmmakers responded to some of the major upheavals of mid- to late 20th century France. The course explores the following questions: How do writers and filmmakers seek to remember events that many would rather forget? What is the relationship between individual and collective memory? How might writing and film give expression to crises of personal and national identity? Previous experience of literary analysis is not required but is an advantage. All texts are studied in translation.

This course provides an introductory primer to the field of international law. It then navigates through a series of case studies exemplifying the subversion of legal conflicts by mass media, including Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even climate change. Finally, it tests the limits of this approach by considering the involvement of social media as an emerging Fifth Estate.

This course introduces students to the discipline of Film Studies by focusing on the main theoretical and technical aspects of filmmaking. Through lectures, seminars, screenings, and excursions, students learn how to approach and discuss films analytically and acquire an awareness of the history and development of cinema and of the key concepts that can be used to discuss and write about films

Chinese Movie Review is a humanities elective course that is adapted to the concept of general education. The course covers the development of Chinese-language films (Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) for more than 100 years. Through the observation and discussion of classic movies, the course aims to enhances understanding of Chinese movies, the appreciation of movies, how to write film reviews. The course also introduces more classic Chinese films.

This course provides a study of Latin American films from the late nineteenth century to the present day and reflects on various political, social, and cultural scenarios of the countries in which these films are set. It critically analyzes the thematic and formal proposals of the films, as well as the aesthetic concepts used in the visual imagery associated with Latin America. The course examines the common problems and historical moments that were projected through film in silent cinema, new cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, and finally, in contemporary works.

This course introduces a series of contemporary motion pictures dealing with human rights issues, including documentaries about the Holocaust of World War II, short films about military slavery and wartime rape, and feature-length works about political refugees and asylum seekers. It frames human rights cinema as a discursive category of filmmaking, one whose roots stretch back to “social problem films” of the 1920s-1930s and which increasingly relies on organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for financing and distribution. The course examines the historical contexts that not only gave rise to human rights violations but also made possible the production of independent and studio-backed films that seek to remedy social problems of the past and present. In addition to examining the political backdrops against which several historically important films emerged, students gain proficiency in analyzing those films’ aesthetic and formal traits while becoming more sensitively aligned with the struggles and sufferings of people around the world.

This course provides a study of the historical origins of film production and its evolution in contemporary society. It discusses theoretical concepts, legal framework and legislation, financing and budget, stages of audiovisual production and the production team.