World Cinema

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Explore questions about the circulation of culture in a global market, including issues of production, distribution and reception
• Analyse ways in which cinema has dealt thematically and formally with globalisation and explore the notion of a ‘global imaginary’ in cinema
• Discuss the development of the terms ‘world cinema’, ‘third cinema’, ‘transnational cinema’, and ‘national cinema’
• Identify the problems and possibilities of analysing examples of ‘non-Western’ cinema in ‘the West’
• Evaluate and draw upon a range of academic and filmic sources in order to formulate, structure and justify your own arguments.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Select, organise and deploy ideas and information in order to formulate cogent arguments and express them effectively.
• Recognise the complexities of contemporary global culture, in terms of media research and in terms of the media and business worlds.
• Work independently, making effective use of library, archival and Internet resources and demonstrating efficient time management
• Demonstrate the ability to listen to, contribute to, and lead discussion in group environments of varying sizes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• A range of case studies in world cinema
• The notions of ‘pure cultures’, ‘diaspora’, ‘difference’ and ‘authenticity’.
• The ‘global’ reception and distribution of films
• The definitions of ‘world’, ‘third’, ‘transnational’ and ‘national’ cinema
• Case-studies of the reception of ‘non-Western’ cinemas in the ‘West’
• The significance of major national production contexts such as India and Hong Kong

While other modules in the Film Studies programme focus primarily on Hollywood and European cinema, this module aims to familiarise you with cinemas from other parts of the world and with questions of production, distribution and reception of films in a global economy. The module will build upon first year courses, challenging you to think about categories you have learnt about such as genre, auteurism, audiences, festival circuits, mechanisms of funding, and frameworks of circulation within a broader horizon.

In many dvd stores, we often find a shelf labelled ‘world cinema’ – a label on the lines of ‘world music’. This signals the universality of diversity and mobility, compared to categories such as ‘third cinema’ or ‘non- Western cinema’. This module will discuss the location and valorisation of cultural products in the global market place. Theoretical debates about the categorisation and circulation of films focus on selected case studies drawn from Middle Eastern, North African or Asian cinema. The examples will display a diverse range of film practices which are difficult to subsume under one label. By studying examples of transnational interaction, co-production and cross-cultural appropriation, the module aims to problematize the concept of ‘national cinema’. We shall analyse contemporary examples of ‘postcolonial hybrid films’ which challenge notions of ‘pure cultures’, ‘difference’ and ‘authenticity’ and explore prevalent tropes and genres in the representation of ‘third world’ and ‘diaspora’ populations in main-stream and non-mainstream cinema. The module will also familiarise you with the problems and the possibilities associated with attempts to exhibit and to promote critical discussion of ‘non-Western’ cinemas in ‘the West’.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• Plenary session
• Seminars
• Screenings
• Tutorials

Learning activities include

• Independent study, viewing and research
• Workshop session in seminar groups to discuss work-in-progress on research project on reception
• Researching and writing-up research project

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Lucia Nagib, Chris Perriam and Rajinder Dudrah (eds) (2012). Theorizing World Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris.

John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson, eds (2000). World Cinema: Critical Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lucia Nagib (2011). World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism. London: Continuum.

Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London/New York: Routledge.

Assessment strategy

Assessments designed to provide informal, in-module feedback

• Discussion of essay work
• Tutorials

Relationship between the teaching, learning and assessment methods and the planned learning outcomes

Firstly, weekly plenary sessions provide a background to the topic to be studied that week and set up the key debates, drawing on the required reading and indicating further avenues of enquiry. These sessions are also more interactive than lectures and require active contribution by the whole group. Screenings are also a central part of the module and provide a focus for the discussion in the plenary sessions and seminars. You will also be required to undertake independent viewing, and you are encouraged to see, and be in a position to write about and discuss, a wide range of films. Finally, the seminars build on the ideas introduced in the plenary sessions and by the reading, and will usually centre on a discussion of the film(s) seen that week and often a student presentation. Seminars provide a forum in which to discursively try out your ideas, to clarify your critical understanding, and to develop your skills of analysis and argumentation in an informal setting.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External