Overview
This course offers an overview of recent filmmaking and media practices hailing from Africa, Indigenous America, Europe, Asia, Quebec and Australia. We will explore how intimate, personal styles of filmmaking converge with theories of globalization, hybridity, transnationalism, and remediation, through the study of a selection of films greatly influenced by the political, cultural, economic, social, and historical forces at work in a number of countries around the world.
More specifically, this course will take you through a virtual journey around the world, with each module presenting a different region of the world, film genre, and way of thinking about world cinema. You will be exposed to different genres and the way they were exploited, distributed and made popular in specific areas of the globe – for example, Japanese animation, African Nollywood videography, Indigenous films and media work, European road movies, and Quebec transnational productions (Quebec filmmakers in Hollywood). Another important aspect of this course relates to film reception and the manners in which populations will re appropriate the films screened by finding new ways of viewing them. Finally, we will critically reflect on the unique cultural values and contemporary tools and techniques that shape the film narrative and style, making them more attentive to the emerging geopolitical realities and transnational structures.
Learning Outcomes
After completing FILM 303, students will be able to:
- recognize specific directors and themes that exemplify artistic high points of contemporary world cinema;
- analyze and discuss how contemporary world cinema responds to political, social and religious landscapes of this era;
- describe the distinct modes of filmmaking in contemporary world cinema;
- explain media theory and intercultural communication as it relates to world cinema;
- identify the cultural components of world cinema;
- critically evaluate and express questions relating to globalization; and
- explore issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion through the experience of giving and receiving critical peer feedback.