Masters Degrees (Cinema)

Study the cinema phenomenon in its global context and explore the complex relationships between national film industries.

This course enables you to build your critical and analytical understanding of production and marketing processes, as well as patterns of consumption in a continuously evolving cultural landscape.

You will study with experts in film analysis, looking at aesthetics and economics, the work of filmmakers around the world, and developing your understanding of the place of cinema in global media industry as a whole.

Intermediate qualifications available:

• Postgraduate certificate – 60 credits at Masters level
• Postgraduate diploma – 120 credits at Masters level

Visit the website: https://www.beds.ac.uk/howtoapply/courses/postgraduate/next-year/international-cinema#about

Course detail

• Study with experts in film analysis, and enjoy regular seminars, screenings, film festivals and guest speakers
• Explore areas of study including: cultural theories; European cinema; film analysis; representation and reality; post-colonial and ‘third’ cinema and world cinema and global media
• Develop your ability to communicate effectively in writing, through new technologies and in oral presentation; and to adapt to different cultural environments and conditions
• Gain a thorough grounding in media as a whole, with a clear picture of the place of cinema in the global media and related industries
• Benefit from a degree ideal if you are seeking a job in a cinema-related field such as programming, marketing or administration, wish to teach film studies or continue to an MPhil or PhD research degree.

Modules

• Research Methods
• Practical Post-Production and Digital Effects
• Film Analysis
• European Cinema Since 1945
• The Film Business: Current Issues and Debates
• World Cinema and Global Media Since 1975
• Project (A)
• Digital Film Project

Assessment

The units contain both formative and summative assessments, and it is during these units that you will learn the range of competences and knowledge necessary to succeed on the course.

For your project work you can undertake a traditional dissertation, a piece of practical video work, a portfolio of diverse practical work, or some combination of these.

The units utilise essays, special exercises, case studies, projects, dissertations and practical work for assessment as appropriate to the topic.

Careers

This course is ideal for students seeking a job in cinema-related fields in areas such as programming, marketing or administration. It provides an understanding of film in relation to global cultural industries.

It is also a valuable academic qualification for people teaching film studies at all levels.

Funding

For information on available funding, please follow the link: https://www.beds.ac.uk/howtoapply/money/scholarships/pg

How to apply

For information on how to apply, please follow the link: https://www.beds.ac.uk/howtoapply/course/applicationform

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On the MA in Film Studies: Popular Cinema you will develop a historically-informed and critically aware understanding of film as an industry, art form, and cultural product. Through this course, you will build a broad portfolio of writing and research skills by combining academic and professional writing projects. We cover the history and theory of popular cinema in the US (classical and contemporary Hollywood), Europe and East Asia (especially Japanese cinema). Through modules on story development and research methods you will sharpen your writing skills in preparation for your dissertation project.

You will develop skills central to a career in either academia or the media industries. You will be taught by a diverse team of film specialists with different national and cultural backgrounds, as well as by industry professional guest speakers.

Why choose this course?

The School of Arts offers a unified hub for the arts in the Richard Hamilton Building, with state-of-the-art technical facilities and 24-hour studio access. All Film Studies staff are active researchers publishing widely on subjects such as: Italian films and their audiences, puzzle films, film theory, film policy, film tourism, visual anthropology, and crime films.

You will have the opportunity to go on the annual field trip to the Cannes Film Festival. We have an advisory panel of film industry experts including leading directors, journalists, and producers and technical specialists who contribute to the programme and our annual series of Film Studies events, including an annual Careers Day. Research and teaching programmes linked to some of Oxford’s premier cultural organisations such as Modern Art Oxford, the Ultimate Picture Palace, Oxford Contemporary Music, and locally held Film Festivals.

You will be part of a stimulating environment where creative practitioners and writers about the arts and culture work closely together to form specialist research units and interdisciplinary research clusters in diverse areas from videogaming to modernism.

This course in detail

Compulsory modules - Students studying for the MA in Film Studies are required to complete the following two compulsory modules:
-Narration in Classical Hollywood Cinema
-Research Methods in Film

Optional modules - MA students can then choose any two of the options below:
-Popular European Cinema
-Professional Film Cultures
-Story Development
-Popular Cinema in East Asia
-Independent Study
-Dissertation

Please note: As our courses are reviewed regularly as part of our quality assurance framework, course content and module choices may change from the details given here.

Teaching and learning

Teaching is centred around film screenings, seminars, individual tutorials and, in the case of Story Development, intensive writing workshops.

Assessment activities include writing academic essays and a dissertation. Other assessments include professional writing activities - book reviews, feature articles, and screenplays.

Careers and professional development

Having a master's qualification helps you to stand out from the crowd, whether you are joining the MA straight after graduating or returning to study after a break of several years.

Our MA will provide you with the skills and knowledge to embark upon a career in the creative and media industries or to improve your current position. However, an MA in Film Studies can also lead to careers in many other sectors, including teaching, lecturing, publishing, arts administration, journalism, museum work, fundraising and higher education management.

The transferable skills you acquire through studying for an MA also open up wider opportunities in business and law. Many MA students continue onto further research and careers in academia, and our course provides the necessary research training required for doctoral work.

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Bringing together those with a passion for contemporary cinema, this course focuses on a range of current approaches to film studies and provides an in-depth study of specific areas such as American independent, European, British and Far East cinema. It will enable you to develop a critical understanding of the importance of theory, method and analysis to the study of film, and you will be encouraged to test out original approaches, both in seminars and written work.

Key features
This MA offers the opportunity to carry out research into a variety of areas, including gender and sexuality on screen; religion, philosophy and film; censorship and ideology; industry and independents in New Hollywood; and cinema and media in the global context. You may also carry out research at the British Film Institute (the largest film archive in the world).

If you are interested in further research, this course provides an excellent foundation for MPhil/PhD study.

What will you study?

You will study all that is new, vital and innovative in contemporary and emergent cinemas. You will evaluate and critically analyse a range of perspectives on cinema in light of contemporary developments, shifting cultural alliances and patterns of cross-fertilisations. In addition, you will be introduced to the main areas of debate in the history of film criticism. Current modules focus on American cinema (mainstream and independent), post-1960 British cinema, European cinema (with specialist studies on gender and sexuality, and place and identity) and world cinema (with case studies on South-east Asia, Latin America, India and Iran).

In writing your dissertation, you will demonstrate your ability to research a topic of your choice in depth, gaining a rigorous grasp of current theoretical and methodological debates relevant to the subject area, as well as an understanding of the historical and cultural context.

Assessment

Essays, presentations, research projects, and dissertation.

Course structure

Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list.

Core modules
-Film History Theory and Analysis
-Film Studies Dissertation
-Media and Cinema in a Global Context

Optional modules
-British Cinema 1960s to Today
-Freedom, Censorship and Subversion
-Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Cinema
-Special Study: Branding the Self: Celebrity, Identity and David Bowie
-Special Study: Getting High on Cinema. The Drug Experience Film
-Special Study: Screaming out Loud: International Horror Television and Film
-Vamps, Divas, Tramps, Lolitas

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The Film Studies MLitt combines taught modules and individual research. It is well suited as preparation for PhD research. We have a thriving community of postgraduate students working in film across the Schools of Modern Languages, English Literature, Language and Linguistics, and Arts and Cultures.

The Film Studies MLitt incorporates a formal research training component where you will develop your research skills and methodologies. You also submit a portfolio of essays chosen according to your interests and experience. You undertake a dissertation of 16,000 - 24,000 words consisting of a sustained piece of original research.

Study consists mainly of seminars, tutorials and independent learning supported by research training.

Dissertation supervision is available in:
-American cinema history
-British sound cinema, particularly 1940-60
-French cinema
-Contemporary Spanish and Latin American cinemas
-Chinese-language cinema
-Early cinema
-Cinema culture
-Cinema and landscape
-Women's film history
-Cinema and the city
-Writing on film
-Cinema and trauma
-Algerian cinema

Supervision is provided for dissertations that span the School of Modern Languages, the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, and the School of Arts and Cultures and sub-disciplines, ensuring the best fit between your interests and the expertise of our staff.

Facilities

You will have the opportunity to use Culture Lab, a complex for creative practice which includes a stock of film cameras and editing suites, as well as motion-capture, animation and sound-mixing technology.

The Language Resource Centre and Robinson Library hold large collections of international films and film magazines. You will also have access to a dedicated postgraduate suite including computers, workspaces, a kitchen and showers.

There are fantastic local film facilities including the Tyneside Cinema and British Film Institute Mediatheque. You will also have guided access to Tyne and Wear Archives.

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The Cinema Studies Institute offers a program leading to the ​ Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Cinema Studies. Our faculty have expertise in several areas, including film and media history; film and media theory; film and media analysis; and film, media, and cultural practices. The course-​based​, one-year MA program offers students the option of a professional internship or a major research paper.

Launched in September 2013, the Doctor of Philosophy program in Cinema Studies addresses the changing role of moving imag​e media within global culture. Past and present configurations of cinema are studied through a constellation of theoretical, textual, social, and historical rubrics. The core curricular offerings engage with debates and questions that persist within the scholarship while also examining how the field contends with emerging disciplinary issues and intermedial formats today and at earlier historical junctures. Throughout, the synthesis of history and theory, textual analysis, and cultural study is emphasized.

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The course is a unique opportunity to embark upon a detailed investigation into the intellectual currents and aesthetic concerns surrounding the study and practice of film. From the outset, questions of history, theory and context are brought to bear on issues of close analysis and interpretation. Elective modules in Screenwriting, Creative Documentary Practice and Editing allow students to balance film theory with practice. At every step of the way your progress will be informed by an emphasis on independent study and critical thinking. In addition, the course aims to develop the key transferable skills required for postgraduate study. These include dissertation preparation, time management and oral and written presentation.


The course consists of six taught modules and a Dissertation module that includes Research Methodologies.

Dissertation and Research Methodologies
This module prepares students for the formal processes of research and writing at M.Phil. level. Classes will cover library use, archival skills, electronic resources, use of Endnote, research skills, note taking, writing and oral presentation and power-point techniques. Students will write a dissertation of approximately 12,000-15,000 words on an approved topic to be supervised by an appropriate member of staff.

In addition, students choose six of the elective modules listed below:

Aesthetics of Digital Cinema
This course traces the history of the development of the digital image with specific reference to its application to filmmaking. We will look at the analogue origins of the digital image and discuss the aesthetic implications of the shift to digital film. Further we will discuss developing models of criticism and their application to the digital cinematic image. We will be drawing examples from Western (Hollywood, Danish, British) cinemas and non-Western (Iranian) cinemas as well as from other outputs, such as YouTube.

Cinema and Ireland

This course will explore the history of Irish cinema from the 1930s to the present. It will also cover such areas as state film production policies, film censorship, and the history of Irish film distribution and exhibition. In addition, it will trace how British and American cinemas have represented Ireland and the Irish, and it will examine representations of political violence, history, gender and the cinema of the Celtic Tiger years, as well as current trends in Irish film production.

Current Trends in European Cinema
This course will look at and examine the changes taking place in cinema in Europe in the latter part of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. This was a period that saw enormous transformation throughout the continent - both East and West - when the post World War II political dispensation collapsed and Cold War divisions crumbled. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent overthrow of the remaining Stalinist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe, the emergence of the European Union as a transnational political entity in 1992, and the globalisation of the world economy all impacted on the way in which films were made and the type of themes they explored and topics they tackled.

Cult Cinema
This module will examine a number of films that have acquired 'cult status' for a variety of reasons. It will pay particular attention to the ways in which these films have circulated in popular and academic discourses and the various attempts to identify 'cult' qualities and qualifying practices.

Melodrama
This module will consider a wide range of variations on the ‘melodramatic mode’, including examples from early cinema, classical Hollywood cinema, as well as current American and European cinema.Â

Editing
This module will introduce students to the craft of editing, giving students an understanding of the essential technical and creative skills involved: how a scene is assembled and seamlessly put together, cutting dialogue, creating tension and drama using editing, using pacing, editing to rhythm, cutting to music and beats. It will also provide students with a through knowledge of the editing software, Final Cut Pro X, covering all aspects of the software, from capture and system-settings, editing tools and shortcuts, to effects, transitions and colour correction. The overall aim is to give students the knowledge, tools and confidence to complete their own work to a professional standard.

Creative Documentary Practice
The aim of this module is expose students to the possibilities of creative documentary film making with a strong emphasis on learning thorough practical application. The module will take a critical look at current practices in the genre with an emphasis both on the techniques of documentary filmmaking and the practicalities of how films are made.

Screenwriting
This module will introduce students to the techniques and conventions of screenwriting. Class exercises will involve the analysis of screenplays and short films, and the course will cover both the conventional three-act structure and other models of screenwriting.

Please note: all modules are subject to change and/or availability. Students must take three modules in Michaelmas term and three modules in Hilary term, subject to timetabling.

Assessment is by a combination of coursework and dissertation:

Each module will be assessed by a combination of written and/or practice based assignments as appropriate and class participation. Total ECTS: 60
Dissertation of approximately 12,000-15,000 words and Research Methodologies assessment. Total ECTS: 30
Postgraduate Diploma

A Postgraduate Diploma in Film Theory and History may be awarded in certain circumstances on the basis of coursework alone (60 ECTS). Entry is the same as for the M.Phil. programme.

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This interdisciplinary programme is taught by staff from a wide range of departments at UCL, all international experts in the field of film studies. Linguistic and cultural expertise informs our teaching on the film-making traditions of Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia and Southeast Asia.

Degree information

The programme covers the history of cinema and a wide variety of world cinemas. It is designed to provide students with advanced knowledge of both the history of cinema and its contemporary developments, and with the skills, concepts, methods and theories required for the study of cinema and media at graduate level.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits.

The programme consists of one core module (30 credits), three options (90 credits), a dissertation (60 credits) and a research methodology module (not credit bearing).

Core modules
-Moving Images: Technology, Forms, Receptions
-Reading and Research Films

Optional modules
-Ancient Rome on Film
-Film Exhibition
-Genre in Italian Cinema
-Hollywood Genres
-How to Make an 8-Minute Documentary
-New Argentine Cinema
-Nordic Cinema: Contextualising Dreyer, Bergman and Dogme
-Political Cinema
-Russian Cinema: Epochs and Genres
-Spanish Film
-The French New Wave
-The Idea of Documentary
-Theories and Practices of Film
-Global Cinemas
-Digital Media
-East and South Asian Cinemas

Dissertation/report
All MA students undertake an independent research project which culminates in a dissertation of 12,000 words.

Teaching and learning
The programme is delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials, and film and video screenings. The core courses are assessed by essays and examinations, which together count for 20% of the final mark. Optional courses are assessed by essays (40%), and the dissertation makes up the final 40%.

Careers

Graduates from the MA in Film Studies have pursued various careers, including: academic research and teaching; careers within media arts (writing, directing, editing); print and media journalism; arts and museum management; multimedia authoring and digital design; film preservation and curating.

Top career destinations for this degree:
-Lecturer, SOAS, University of London
-Communication Officer, Camera Lucida Productions
-Head of Development, Clcada Bellweather (CB Productions)
-Media and Film Studies Lecturer, City and Islington College
-Programme Assistant, ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts)

Employability
Former students of this programme have gone on to careers in education and publishing and a wide variety of careers in the media arts, including film production, festival programming, and film curation with organisations that include the BBC, the Barbican Centre, the Athens International Film Festival, and the London Film School.

Why study this degree at UCL?

Each year, we welcome students from all over the world to our Film Studies MA. Under the aegis of UCL's Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry (CMII), students spend a year amongst a thriving, cross-disciplinary community of cinema scholars and research students.

We have particular research strengths in film history, film theory, and in an exceptionally broad range of national and regional cinemas.

UCL has made a major commitment to refurbishing its multimedia infrastructure for the study of film and related media. This includes building a significant collection of print and visual materials and new facilities for teaching and for film and media screenings.

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MLitt in Film Studies

• The opportunity to study Film Studies at an advanced level.
• An emphasis on international and transnational cinemas.
• Both core and specialist modules are assessed by essay.
• Two specialist modules provide you with the opportunity to transfer and apply the theoretical knowledge and research skills acquired in the core module to a more concrete level of intellectual investigation, focusing on the creation of meaning and aesthetic value in the context of global dynamics of cultural production and distribution.
• The specialist modules vary annually and reflect current staff research interests. Emphasis throughout the year is placed on individual research.

Features

* Film Studies was ranked first in Scotland for world leading and internationally excellent research in the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014.

* Senior expertise of high profile scholars, such as Professor Robert Burgoyne, Professor Richard Dyer, Mr Jean Michel Frodon and Professor Dina Iordanova, all internationally known and respected leaders in the field .

* Regular visits from high-profile film critics, film. The most recent have been celebrated Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, who in April 2015 visited the Department and attended a screening of two of his films, followed by a Q&A session.

* The new programme in Global Cinema: Managing and Cultural Curation, is offered out of the Institute for Global Cinema and Creative Cultures (IGCCC: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/globalcinema ) which capitalise on achievements, global connections and on our reputational advantages as leaders in the study of global culture, film circulation and film festivals.

In learning and teaching, St Andrews sets the highest of standards and attracts students from all over the world with understandably high expectations. In its first five-yearly review in 2009, the Department’s teaching provision achieved the highest possible commendation. Teaching and research are closely co-related, and postgraduate teaching is informed by the staff’s research activity.

At St Andrews, we investigate cinema as a key form of cultural output and as the dominant type of creative expression. Focusing on the global dimension, our programmes cover key aspects of Film Studies through the lens of transnational cultural studies.

Film Studies at St Andrews is committed to questioning the traditional view of what is ‘normal’ cinema. We attempt to uncover the agendas (be they national, ‘western’, cultural, commercial, industrial, and so on) that define how we think about cinema, both in terms of the kinds of films we watch for pleasure, and those we study at university. There is much to be learned by studying what is produced at the margins of dominant societies, in addition to the canonical films of Hollywood and the European art house. We are interested in exploring the ways in which racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual subcultures conceptualise their identities. Similarly, we are keen to look at films produced at the periphery of established nations, co-productions between smaller players struggling to survive in the global marketplace and popular genre films often deemed unworthy of high-brow critical attention. Similarly, we
look at films that focus on transnational communities or appeal to international markets that deal with lesser-known histories and are made in foreign languages but are nonetheless worthy of critical examination and intellectual engagement.

Studying film at St Andrews will help you master a range of advanced research skills and acquire knowledge related to the construction and analysis of the moving image, the past and present day realities of various national and regional film traditions, the dynamics of the global film industry, and the theoretical approaches related to film.

Facilities and collections

The Department is housed in its own buildings, in North Street. They are within easy walking distance of the University Library, local cinema and town centre. The Department is well resourced with a dedicated teaching room. Recently the Department has started to use the wonderful facilities at the nearby Byre Theatre for most of our seminars, and for other film-related activities. MLitt classes are usually held at the Byre. A Film Studies Postgraduate Study Centre houses a DVD collection, postgraduate workspaces, viewing stations and off-air recording facilities.

At St Andrews you will be exposed to a rich and diverse film programme. Regular course-related film showings take place in a custom-built theatre. In addition, a range of screenings takes place across the University during term time, featuring films related to anthropology, international relations, and history.

St Andrews has excellent library provision, with book, journal and other information resources in Film Studies at a level consistent with an international centre of excellence. The Main Library hosts one of the best collections of international cinema on DVD and video (over 9,000 titles). The Library also holds over 1,000,000 print monographs, over 32,000 electronic books, and substantial journal title holdings in print and over 33,900 full-text electronic titles. Well over 2,000 monographs are classified under Film Studies and related subjects. There are holdings of approximately 100 film, television and media-related journals, of which about 65 are available electronically; there is also networked access to various databases, including Box of Broadcasts, Film Indexes Online and Film & Television Literature Index Full-Text.

Careers

In our media saturated culture, the opportunities for Film Studies graduates are remarkably diverse. Directly related are careers in academia, creative industries, development, distribution, film festival/cinema programming, and arts administration.

A Film Studies degree opens doors to many other spheres, including media management, film and TV research, journalism, publishing, advertising, cultural entrepreneurship, nongovernmental organisations, marketing, public relations and education. Recent destinations include: Junior Assistant Producer, European Tour Productions (IMG Media); Adjunct Instructor, SUNY (State University of New York) at Oswego; Consultant for Propel London Media.

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Multicultural, Multi-Disciplinary MA

The MA in Culture and Colonialism explores literature, politics and culture from Ireland to India, from Africa to the Middle East. Students analyse imperial ascendancies, race and racial theories, nationalist movements, postcolonial experiences, the rise of neo-colonial thought, multiculturalism and interculturalism, and the implications of globalisation and development for the modern world.

This MA allows students to combine the specialisation of postgraduate research with the adaptable skills training of a multi-disciplinary approach. Students benefit from the legacy of an MA programme established in 1994; the programme has continuously re-invented itself in changing ideological climates while maintaining its primary goal: to offer a critical education in the cultural discourses of power.

Careers

MA in Culture and Colonialism graduates have gone on to careers in development work, NGOs, law, university lecturing, publishing, media, journalism, community work, teaching (primary and secondary), film-making, advertising, and the Civil Service. The programme has a particularly strong record in research training: a high proportion of its students have proceeded to doctoral programmes in Ireland, Britain and North America, with many of them winning prestigious funding awards.

Teaching Staff

The programme's teaching staff over the years has been drawn from the disciplines of English, History, Political Science and Sociology, Economics, Irish Studies, Film Studies, Spanish, French, Archaeology, German, Italian, and Classics, and is supplemented by Irish and international guest lecturers.

Programme Outline

The full-time degree taken over a twelve-month period from September. The year is divided into two teaching semesters (September to December and January to April), with the summer period devoted to completing the dissertation. A two-year part-time option is also available. Students take six taught modules together with a (non-assessed) research training seminar, and produce a 15,000-word dissertation (30 ECTS) on a topic of their choice.

Programme Modules

Central Modules

EN541 Colonialism in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Cultural Theory
This module focuses on issues of identity, political agency and representation. It offers an introduction to twentieth-century theorisations of colonialism and neo-colonialism, especially in relation to cultural production, and their implications for twenty-first century socio-political thought. The distinctive position of Ireland in relation to postcolonial theory is considered, together with other national and international contexts. Some of the theorists discussed include Fanon, Said, Spivak and Ahmad.

SP544 Decolonization and Neo-Colonialism: The Politics of 'Development'
The phenomena of development and underdevelopment in those lands that have experienced colonial rule have been theorised in two broadly contrasting ways in social science: the modernisation perspective, which derives from the northern hemisphere by and large, and a series of counter-perspectives (such as structuralism, dependency, neo-Marxism and world systems theory), whose exponents hail from the southern hemisphere in the main. The module also considers the issue of how much light modernisation and counter-perspectives can shed on the Irish experience of development and underdevelopment.

HI546 Studies in the History of Colonialism and Imperialism
This module introduces students to some of the key thinkers and concepts in the writing of British imperial history. The work of scholars such as J. A. Hobson, Ronald Robinson and Jack Gallagher, Peter Cain and Tony Hopkins, Chris Bayly, Alan Lester and John Darwin will be discussed. Concepts such as finance imperialism, informal empire, the official mind, gentlemanly capitalism, colonial knowledge, imperial networks, and bridgeheads will be examined from a critical perspective. Students will be asked to read key texts, undertake wider reading and research to help put these key texts in context, comment on their readings, and present their own ideas as the basis for class discussion and debate.

Research Seminar (compulsory but not examined)
This module provides a training in research, analysis and writing techniques appropriate to the programme, as well as individual consultations on the formulation of dissertation topics. The seminar will take place throughout the year.

Option Modules (two chosen)

EN547 Literature and Colonialism
This module considers the relationship between literary modes and aesthetics and political power. It analyses literature connected to the British Empire and its former colonies, discussing English, Irish, Indian and African writers in relation to colonial power structures, nationalist movements and postcolonial developments. Genres covered include imperial adventure fiction, travel writing, late-Victorian urban Gothic, modernist and post-modernist fiction and poetry, postcolonial writing, and the twenty-first century multicultural novel.

EC535 Political Economy, Colonialism and Globalization
The aim of the module will be to identify the fundamental concepts of globalization by analysing the various ideologies, systems and structures that underpin the progression of global capitalism through the ages. Underlying philosophical theories will be linked with political, legal sociological and economic ideals that are often the driving forces behind these processes.

EN573 Travel Literature
The genre of travel writing includes a vast array of literary forms from journals to letters, ambassadorial reports, captivity narratives, historical descriptions, ethnographies, and natural histories. The appearance of such accounts explodes in the early modern period in an era of expanded travel for purposes of trade, education, exploration, and colonial settlement. This module looks at a range of documents from different historical moments to track the development of this important genre, including the emergence of travel writing by women.

EN549 Cinema and Colonialism
This module considers the relationships between colonialism and the theory and practice of cinema. Seminars may address the following themes: the Hollywood genres of the ‘Western’ and the ‘Vietnam movie’; postcolonial theories of cinema; Cuban cinema; cinema of anti-colonial revolution; neocolonialism and Irish cinema; African cinema; gender, colonialism and cinema; and Western representations of imperialism.

HI588 Studies in Regional Identities
This module introduces students to concepts of regional identities and explores various interpretative approaches to regional identity. Students will examine the role of history, language and religion in the construction and perpetuation of regional identity and will consider the relationship between regions and nation states. This is a team-taught module. While the content may vary according to the availability of staff from year to year, it will include Irish and European case studies.

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The Masters in Film Studies is a unique and stimulating programme that allows you to explore central concepts in the development of film theory and film-philosophy with an emphasis on European and American auteur cinema. Our students engage seriously with the analysis of film and the history of cinema aesthetics and interpretation.

The programme will provide you with the analytical and critical tools for the investigation of individual films and the opportunity to discuss these in relation to auteurs, film movements and genres as well as contexts of production and reception.

No previous film or philosophical study is required, but a love of cinema and an appreciation of its importance as an art form is crucial.

Edinburgh is an ideal environment for the study of film as it is home to outstanding art-house cinemas, a lively cinephile culture and the world-renowned Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Programme structure

Over two semesters, taught in small seminars, you will complete two compulsory and two option courses, and will be trained in research methods and skills. You will then complete a dissertation project under individual supervision.

Compulsory courses:

• Film Theory
• Film-Philosophy

Option courses may include:

• Cinema Auteurs
• Cinema and Society in South Asia
• Contemporary Japanese Cinema
• Film Adaptation
• Film and Gender
• Film and Religion
• Gender, Revolution and Modernity in Chinese Cinema
• Mediating Film
• Music on Screen

Career opportunities

This programme is an excellent chance to develop your cinematic interests and knowledge and to build your CV with a view to a career in academia, or in any film or media related field.

You will be introduced to Scotland’s lively film culture, with exceptional opportunities to network within the field.

You will also gain transferable skills in communication, research and project management that can be applied to any career you decide to pursue.

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Degree programme description
This MA offers you the opportunity to explore key aspects of film analysis, theory, history and practice. If you have already studied film at undergraduate level, you will be able to deepen your knowledge here. If this is your first in-depth engagement with film, you will be introduced to some of the liveliest and most important chapters in the history of cinema. You will be able to pursue your own particular interests in a dissertation on a topic of your choice. The MA also includes an element of practical work and the study of production practices.

From the earliest days of British cinema, London was the location of most British studios and it remains the national focal point for studying film.
Our provision at Queen Mary is enhanced by our proximity to major cultural centres such as the British Film Institute, which includes the BFI Southbank, National Library and National Archive, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Ciné-Lumière at the French Institute. The MA attracts high numbers of well-qualified applicants from the UK and overseas each year. It is both a valuable qualification in its own right and particularly useful for applicants wishing to study subsequently for an MPhil or PhD in Film Studies.

Degree programme outline
The core module spans two semesters and provides an introduction to film analysis and theory, an overview of national and transnational cinemas (focusing on films from the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia and Latin America), and an outline of film history during the twentieth century. You will also be introduced to aspects of film production and practice, including the technology of photography and its use in the feature film, cinematography and the continuity system and its relationship to the development of directorial style.

You can also choose two single-semester optional modules from a range including:
• 9/11 and American Film
• Auteur Direction
• Comedies of Desire
• Films of Powell and Pressburger
• Film History: Hollywood and the Second World War
• Frame, Space, Time: Approaches to the Experiences of Film
• History, Fiction and Memory in French Cinema
• Hollywood’s Vietnam
• Introduction to Film Archives
• Married to the Mob?: Mafia representations in Hollywood and Italian Cinema
• Moving Landscapes: Film Geography and Contemporary European Cinema (subject to approval)
• Paris on the Screen
• Sighting Gender and Sexuality in Latin American Film.

You may be permitted to take one option offered as part of another MA programme in the School or within the Faculty of Arts, provided that the MA convenor agrees that this would be beneficial for your intellectual development and research plans. In the case of options outside the School, admission to such modules requires the further agreement of the module convenor. This arrangement is also extended to include an option offered as part of the MA in Global Cinema and the Transcultural at SOAS, the MA in Screen Studies at Goldsmiths, the MA in History of Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck, the MA in Film Studies at UCL, or the MA in Contemporary Cinema Cultures at KCL.

Assessment
You will submit three essays for the core module, one of 2,000 words and two of 3,000 words, and one 4,000-word essay for each of the two options. At the end of August you will submit a dissertation of 10,000 to 12,000 words.

Entry requirements
Applicants will normally be expected to have been awarded (by the time they are actually beginning the MA course) a first- or upper-second-class degree (or international equivalent) in a relevant field of study, for example in Literature, History, Film and Media, or Cultural Studies.

Career opportunities
Doing an MA is an essential prerequisite for an application to enrol for a PhD. If you are not interested in pursuing an academic degree, you will find that many varied opportunities may arise for which the MA in Film will be an appropriate training: media, teaching, PR, etc. There is no specific career for which the MA at Queen Mary is specifically designed to cater.

Further information
http://www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/

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This programme, available in both part-time and full-time study modes, offers you a broad-based understanding of how film, television and other screen media have developed and interacted across their varying histories. It also gives you the opportunity to specialise in chosen areas of those media histories, in order to personalise your MA studies towards specific intellectual interests and future career hopes. The programme is unique in the way that it combines rigorous academic study with creative and practical opportunities, the latter offered both within certain option modules and via the two-month work placement.

This intermixing of the academic and the practical also enables you to take your interests further, into further postgraduate study, towards a career in teaching or into possible work opportunities in many areas of the media industries.

The programme has two other pathways: MA Film and Screen Media (European Pathway) and MA Film and Screen Media with Film Programming and Curating.

Why study this course at Birkbeck?

• Arts and humanities courses at Birkbeck are ranked third best in London and 13th in the UK in the Times Higher Education 2016-17 World University Subject Rankings.
• Teaching and supervision are delivered by leading film and media academics such as Drs Mike Allen, Janet McCabe, Andrew Asibong, Silke Arnold-de Simine, Dorota Ostrowska, Emma Sandon, Michael Temple, and Professors Laura Mulvey and Ian Christie. The research expertise of the teaching staff in cinema history, film aesthetics, television industry and form, and contemporary and future new media opportunities inform every aspect of the programme.
• Core teaching is supplemented by talks from leading international academics and industry professionals, widening the intellectual framework of the programme and enabling further productive interaction between academia and industry.
• The award-winning Birkbeck Cinema is central to the course. The cinema is equipped with 35mm and state-of-the-art DVD projection.
• The Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image programmes conferences, screenings and film-related events of all kinds throughout the academic year.
• The School of Arts offers a number of bursaries for postgraduate students.
• Located in central London, in the heart of historic Bloomsbury, Birkbeck is within easy reach of a world-famous social and cultural scene, as well as research facilities such as the British Film Institute and the British Library.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The programme consists of the compulsory module Screen Media: History, Technology and Culture, a choice of option modules, a research project or placement and a dissertation.

The compulsory module is designed to introduce you to the basic methodologies and issues involved in the area concerned, as well as research skills and methods. The option modules allow you to pursue specific interests and areas of research.

A unique feature of the programme is the placement, which offers you the experience of working in a prominent media company or institution. Alternatively you can complete a research project which gives you the chance to undertake independent research and reflect on research methodologies.

You will complete the programme with a 15,000-word dissertation.

COMPULSORY MODULES

• Research/Placement Project and Report MA Film and Screen Media
• Screen Media: History, Technology and Culture

INDICATIVE OPTION MODULES

• Artists' Film: the museum, the gallery and beyond
• Audio-Visual Histories of Cinema
• British Cinema and Television 1960-85
• Contemporary American Cinema
• Cultural Memory - Memory Cultures
• Curating Film, Sharing Passions
• Film Festivals
• Shaping Contemporary Film Culture B: Themes in Film Festivals
• Shaping Contemporary Film Culture A: The Essay Film and the Archive
• Theoretical Perspectives on Media

DISSERTATION MA FILM AND SCREEN MEDIA

• Dissertation MA Film and Screen Media

You will also have the option to take an intercollegiate module offered at another college of the University of London through the Screen Studies Group.

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The Film: Theory and Practice MA provides you with a sophisticated understanding of films as systems of meaning. Your study covers areas such as film-making, historical cinema, screenwriting and narrative.

The course will advance your knowledge of the musculature of cinematography and editing, and the nerve system of narrative conventions, authorship, genre, power, aesthetics, stardom and nationality. You can specialise in areas of film theory, or in film practice; the latter including screenwriting, film-making and cinema management.

You will develop your own scholarly approaches to film through exploring a range of positions in film studies, and a range of historical periods and national/transnational cinemas.

By the end of the course you will have acquired knowledge of a range of analytical and theoretical principles in film studies and an array of national/transnational cinemas, including:
-British
-Chinese
-French
-American
-North African
-Spanish and Latin American

If you choose to work in film production you will usually have a finished film within 12 weeks.

Our graduates have progressed into a variety of careers, including: academia, media and journalism, cinema management, and film production. Many of our MA students go on to PhD research.

The study of film has a long history at Newcastle. Our community of film scholars shares specialisms in:
-Film genre
-Film stardom
-Gender and ethnic identities in cinema
-Writing on film

Our research interests also range widely in Anglophone, French, Hispanic, East Asian and Middle Eastern cinemas.

Award-winning film-makers, Tina Gharavi and Ian MacDonald, bring a wealth of professional experience to the teaching of film production. We collaborate with the Tyneside Cinema to provide work experience opportunities and in-depth knowledge in film exhibition and distribution.

We have a thriving research culture in film. The Research Centre in Film and Digital Media organises a diverse range of activities such as visiting speaker series, student or staff-oriented conferences and symposiums, and Chinese and Spanish film festivals.

Work experience

In two optional modules: Exhibition Culture and Professional Placement, we collaborate with the Tyneside Cinema in providing opportunities for work experience.

You will also have the opportunity to get involved in the organisation of conferences and film festivals.

Facilities

You will have the opportunity to use Culture Lab, a complex for creative practice which includes a stock of film cameras and editing suites, as well as motion-capture, animation and sound-mixing technology.

The Language Resource Centre and Robinson Library hold large collections of international films and film magazines. You will also have access to a dedicated postgraduate suite including computers, workspaces, a kitchen and showers.

There are fantastic local film facilities including the Tyneside Cinema and British Film Institute Mediatheque. You will also have guided access to Tyne and Wear Archives.

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This is an exciting and dynamic time for documentary practice; in recent years there has been a renaissance in documentary, seeing huge developments in both technology and form. Documentary stories are now being told via telecommunications, in cinemas, on TV, and online.

In this contemporary course you will be provided tuition in the technological, ethical and intellectual developments in this recent boom in theatrical, broadcast and cross platform documentary. You will be taught by award winning documentary filmmakers and high profile TV, film and cross platform commissioners. Tutors Marc Isaacs , Helen Littleboy and Victoria Mapplebeck, are all active filmmakers with excellent industry contacts and through collaborating with them on work in progress you will gain a unique learning opportunity that will provide genuine vocational experience. We also welcome regular guest lecturers, giving students a direct link to industry professionals and the opportunity to learn from their substantial experience and expertise.

On graduating, our students are skilled in creative and professional documentary practice. We have one of the highest employability rates amongst UK Universities and our graduates have gone on to become award-winning filmmakers and journalists.

This is a split campus course, taught in both Egham and Bedford Square in central London.

See the website https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/mediaarts/coursefinder/madocumentarybypractice.aspx

Why choose this course?

- We have had regular lectures from award winning filmmaker Marc Isaacs, Channel 4 commissioner Kate Vogel and Emily Renshaw Smith, commissioner of Current TV. Forthcoming guest lectures include BBC Director Adam Curtis, feature director Chris Waitts and Matt Locke, Commissioning Editor for New Media and Education at Channel 4.

- Guest commissioners provide students with knowledge of and links to current commissioning strategies. Several of our invited commissioners have subsequently worked with our students on developing their projects.

- You will have exclusive 24-7 access to six purpose-built editing rooms equipped with Final Cut Studio 2 on Mac Pro editing systems. Our Location Store provides an equipment loan and advisory support service with a lending stock that includes twenty Sony HVR-V1E cameras, twenty Sennheiser radio microphone kits and a selection of professional quality sound recording and lighting equipment.

- With access to the latest digital recording and editing equipment, and covering areas from authorship to authenticity, this course offers you an in-depth study of creative production, taking you from conception through commissioning to research, composition and exhibition.

- You will be provided with excellent tuition in self-shooting documentary filmmaking techniques. You will be able to meet the growing demand for self-shooting directors and producers in both the independent and commercial documentary industries.

Department research and industry highlights

- TRENT is an exciting and innovative collaborative project between the British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC) and Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Led by John Ellis the project brings together the nine existing online databases hosted and curated by the BUFVC which provide important film, radio and television material along with accompanying metadata and contextual information for academics, students, teachers and researchers. This project brings together all the material contained in these databases, yet Trent is not simply a master database. Instead it foregrounds creative searching through a common interactive interface using real-time ‘intelligent’ filtering to bringing disparate databases into a single search and discovery environment whilst maintaining the integrity and individual provenance of each.

- The EUscreen project is major funded EU project which aims to digitise and provide access to European’s audio-visual heritage. This innovative and ambitious three year project began in October 2009 and the project consortium is made up of 28 partners from 19 European countries and is a best practice network within the eContentplus programme of the European Commission. The Department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway’s is responsible for the content selection policy for EUscreen and those involved include John Ellis, Rob Turnock and Sian Barber.

- Video Active is a major EU-funded project aiming to create access to digitised television programme content from archives around Europe. It involves collaboration between the Department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway and Utrecht University, and eleven European archives including the BBC, to provide access to content and supporting contextual materials via a specially designed web portal. The team from the Department of Media Arts, who are John Ellis, Cathy Johnson and Rob Turnock, are responsible for developing content selection strategy and policy for the project.

- Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe is an AHRC-funded international Research Network, led by Daniela Berghahn, which brings together researchers from ten UK and European universities, filmmakers, policy makers and representatives from the cultural sector. The Research Network explores how the films of migrant and diasporic filmmakers have redefined our understanding of European identity as constructed and narrated in European cinema. The project seeks to identify the numerous ways in which multi-cultural and multi-ethnic presences and themes have revitalised contemporary European cinema by introducing an eclectic mix of non-Western traditions and new genres.

- Lina Khatib was awarded an AHRC Research Leave Grant to complete a book on the representation of Lebanese politics and society in Lebanese cinema over the last thirty years. The study focuses on cinema’s relationship with national identity in the context of the Civil War and the post-war period in Lebanon.

- Gideon Koppel was awarded an AHRC Research Leave Grant to complete his feature-length documentary portrait of a rural community in Wales, The Library Van, which has been partly funded by the Arts Council of Wales.

Course content and structure

You will study three core units during the year.

Core course units:
- From Idea to Screen
From Idea to Screen introduces the practice of documentary film making - exploring eclectic notions of the genre, from the conventional to those more associated with fine art. The course tutors also use their own work which is deconstructed across all its constituent parts idea, conception, pre-production planning, and research, shooting and post-production. Ideas to Screen will explore ways of translating observations and ideas into imagery – both visual and aural. There will be an emphasis on experimental forms of narrative – at time crossing the boundaries between fine art and documentary. For the final and assessed project in this unit, each student will be asked make a video ‘portrait’ of a character.

- Foundations of Production
Contemporary documentary production requires managerial and business skills as well as creative ones. This unit will instruct you in the industrial skills required for the production of video, television and multimedia documentary. These include researching the market, writing proposals, acquiring funding for development and production, drafting contracts, drawing up budgets, copyright clearance, and marketing.

- Major Documentary Production – Dissertation
Developing out of study, research and practice from previous units, you will direct and produce a substantial documentary production. This is the largest assignment in the course and is appropriately weighted. The unit is tutorial based.

On completion of the course graduates will have:

- gained invaluable experience of both authored and commercial documentary production

- the ability to develop their own ideas, preparing them for the documentary industry but also finding ways to reinvent it

- an understanding of documentary film genre and its changing boundaries as well as the changing technologies and their impact on the genre

- an advanced understanding of the processes of making a documentary film from initial concept to final form and the various stages of production.

- an awareness of the institutions and mechanisms of the UK film and television industry

- a critical knowledge of the current and changing platforms for documentary film, from cinema to television and the internet.

Assessment

Assessment is carried out by a variety of methods including project work, photo essays and written production papers.

Employability & career opportunities

On graduating, our students will be skilled in creative and professional documentary practice. We have one of the highest employability rates amongst UK Universities and our graduates have become award-winning filmmakers and BBC journalists; recently one of our alumni Charlotte Cook was appointed Strand Co -Coordinator of BBC’s prestigious Documentary Strand Storyville.

Our graduate students have won and been nominated for many awards including, The One World Broadcasting Trust Award and The Jerwood First Cuts Documentary. In 2009 two of our students, Aashish Gadhvi and Michael Watts won the One World Student Documentary Fund which funds challenging international documentary projects.

Syed Atef Amjad Ali has recently had his film The Red Mosque previewed at The Amsterdam International Documentary Festival. The Red Mosque was made with production funds Syed received from The Jan Virijman Fund and also from the One World-Broadcasting Award.

Chung Yee Yu has won the Cinematography Award at Next Frame (A Touring Festival of International Student Film and Video) Chung Yee Yu has also won the Silver Award of Open Category of IFVA (The Hong Kong Independent Short Film & Video Awards)

Recent graduate Suzanne Cohen has just has her work selected for the BBC’s Film Network website; an interactive showcase for ‘new British filmmakers, screening three new short films in broadband quality every week, adding to a growing catalogue of great shorts’.

How to apply

Applications for entry to all our full-time postgraduate degrees can be made online https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studyhere/postgraduate/applying/howtoapply.aspx .

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The MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural offers students the unique opportunity to study in-depth regional cinemas outside the now standard research topographies, both geographical and theoretical, of mainstream cinema studies, so opening up avenues for advanced research in areas and methodologies as yet untapped. Alternatively, it provides an avenue of study for those simply wishing to obtain a post-graduate qualification in Cinema Studies without being confined to a European- and/or American-centric world-view.The degree is designed around a compulsory core module, Cinema, Nation and the Transcultural, that simultaneously challenges existing critical paradigms defining 'national cinema' in the simplistic terms of geographical zones of production and reception, while offering alternative methodological approaches to the study of cinema within the local/global, inter-cultural contexts of the post-modern world. The elective elements of the degree allow students the opportunity to specialize in one or more of the many regional cinemas on offer in the School: Japanese, Chinese (mainland, Hong Kong & Taiwanese), mainland and maritime South East Asian, Indian, Iranian, Middle Eastern and African). It also enables students to combine specialist film studies knowledge with a minor module in an Asian or African language or to advance their social and cultural knowledge of a given region through an ethnographic module. Alternatively, through our links with University of London Screen Studies Group , students may choose from a selection of elective modules to further develop cross-cultural perspectives in an east/west framework.

SOAS is exceptional in its geographical focus, and the expertise in the disciplines of Film and Screen Studies makes us unique in the field. In a ‘global’ industry, film and media scholars, and practitioners are increasingly recognising the need for a move toward the study of image cultures and industries beyond the historical hegemonies of the European and Hollywood industries. This has been more than evident in the career trajectories of graduates from the MA Global Cinemas and the Transcultural degree. Graduates from this degree have gone on to find employment in Film Festivals (Venice to name one), DVD distribution companies, the art house cinema circuit, while others with a practice based background have gone onto form their own production companies, in one case producing documentaries for Al-Jazeera (see the Contraimage link on the SOAS Centre for Film and Screen Studies website). Other graduates have followed the more traditional pathway into PhD programmes where they have been singularly successful in competing for AHRC studentships.

Email: [email protected]

Visit the website http://www.soas.ac.uk/film-studies/ma-global-cinemas-and-the-transcultural/

Structure

Each student takes 4 units in total: the Compulsory Course (1 unit), the Dissertation (1 unit), one unit from list 3 and one further unit of options of their choice.

In choosing their courses, MA students are advised to pay careful attention to the balance of coursework across the two terms. In particular it is important to ensure that each term you have three taught courses. However much you might wish to take a mixture of courses that requires more coursework in one term than the other, it is most unwise to attempt to take four courses in one term and two in the other. Experience has shown that students simply cannot manage the load during the heavy term with the result that they either do very badly, fail or are unable to complete the courses in question. As a result Directors of Studies for the degrees and the Faculty staff will not approve a selection of courses which results in an imbalanced workload.

MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural- Programme Specifications 2012/13 (pdf; 56kb) - http://www.soas.ac.uk/film-studies/ma-global-cinemas-and-the-transcultural/file80897.pdf

Find out how to apply here - http://www.soas.ac.uk/admissions/pg/howtoapply/

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