Media and film studies

Cinema and Migration

Module code: P5059
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Seminar, Film
Assessment modes: Coursework

This module gives you the chance to engage with films that represent, and are products of, humans moving across borders, whether migrants, refugees, or exiles; and to situate these films according to relevant critical debates and historical contexts.

Topics of inquiry will consider interfaces between aesthetics, politics and society, and may include:

• comparing documentary modes, popular genres and experimental forms;
• history, memory and narratives of travel, exclusion, assimilation and diaspora;
• representations of ‘race’, religion, gender, sexuality, and class;

In addition, you will deepen their skills in independent research and higher level contextual and textual analysis.

Module learning outcomes

• Deploy critical and systematic analysis of film texts that represent, and are products of, migrants, refugees, or exiles
• Demonstrate the ability to situate such films according to some of their social and historical contexts
• Demonstrate appropriate understanding of critical debates on the cultural and political significance of films that represent, and are products of, human movement across borders
• Demonstrate appropriate capacity for individual research and skills in written communication
• Demonstrate appropriate understanding of methodological issues raised in approaching cinema and migration from a Western European perspective