Cinema and Climate (P5093)

15 credits, Level 5

Spring teaching

You’ll take an eco-critical approach to cinema, examining its status both as image object and material object.

The module’s premise is that cinema is not only a representational art, it is also a material one. In both cases, it has real world effects.

We’ll consider three media ecologies concerning cinema's effects on climate:

• social – mainstream and general representations of climate in cinema and its attempts to shift beliefs and behaviours in relation to the climate crisis
• perceptual – cinema and video that attempts to change the viewer’s way of perceiving their world. For example, slow cinema that decentres the human, eco-feminist and indigenous films
• material – the environmental footprint of making and watching film.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 48 hours of contact time and about 102 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.