FACULTY OF COMMUNICATION

Department of Cinema and Digital Media

CDM 445 | Course Introduction and Application Information

Course Name
Contemporary Global Cinema
Code
Semester
Theory
(hour/week)
Application/Lab
(hour/week)
Local Credits
ECTS
CDM 445
Fall/Spring
3
0
3
4

Prerequisites
None
Course Language
English
Course Type
Service Course
Course Level
First Cycle
Mode of Delivery -
Teaching Methods and Techniques of the Course Discussion
Q&A
Lecture / Presentation
Course Coordinator -
Course Lecturer(s)
Assistant(s) -
Course Objectives Bu ders, sürgündeki sinemacılar tarafından yaratılan filmlerin perspektifinden sinema tarihine genel bir bakış ve sürgün, göç, diaspora kavramları ve film kuramlarındaki aksanlı sinema, ulusötesi sinema, sınırların filmleri, postkolonyal sinema, militan sinema, Üçüncü sinema, kültürlerarası sinema kavramları hakkında genel bir anlayış sağlamayı amaçlamaktadır.
Learning Outcomes The students who succeeded in this course;
  • Analyze films within a particular historical, social, and economic context.
  • Have a wider perspective of migration in different historical and geographical contexts and analyze a film with the related film theories.
  • Describe the various genres, languages, and filmmakers of contemporary world cinema.
  • Discuss cultural stereotypes about a cinematographic canon.
  • Working on a presentation of a film as a part of a co-research groups
Course Description This course is an introduction to film theories and film history from the point of view of the relationship between global migration and cinema. It will start with a focus on the colonial gaze used to represent other societies in early cinema and how this approach took different shapes in the following decades. It will then explore the effect of technological transformations after the 1970s, which has allowed filmmakers in exile to develop different approaches to visual self-representation. As a part of the course, each week a film created by a filmmaker in exile in different historical periods will be analyzed. Which common themes and aesthetic choices do filmmakers in exile to reflect on their condition use? How do they deal with the issue of self-representation in their films and what kind of fault lines they create in today’s perception of migration?

 



Course Category

Core Courses
Major Area Courses
X
Supportive Courses
Media and Management Skills Courses
Transferable Skill Courses

 

WEEKLY SUBJECTS AND RELATED PREPARATION STUDIES

Week Subjects Related Preparation
1 Introduction General introduction to the films that will be analyzed during the course Screening Želimir Žilnik, Inventur, 1975 (9’)
2 Introduction to basic concepts and terminology used during the course: Exile, diaspora, migration Colonialism and post-colonialism Reading materials:Edward Said, “Reflections on Exile” in Reflections on Exile and other Literary and Cultural Essays, Granta Books (2000) pp.250-266 
 Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands. Essays and Criticism 1981-1991, Granta 
Books (1991), pp.9-21
3 Introduction to film history with the related theoretical background • Imperial and colonial cinema, third cinema, imperfect cinema 
 • The cinemas of exile, migration, diaspora 
 • Accented cinema, transnational cinema, post-colonial cinema, cinema of borders 
 Screening Trinh Minh-ha, Reassemblage: from the Firelight to the Screen, 1983, 40’ Elizabeth Ezra, Terry Rowden, “General Introduction: What is Transnational Cinema?” in Idem (ed.) Transnational cinema: the Film Reader, Routledge (2006), pp.1-12 
 Hamid Naficy, “Situating Accented Cinema” in Transnational cinema: the Film Reader, cit., pp.111-129 
 Optional reading: Robert Stam, “Third World Film and Theory” and “Film and the Postcolonial” in Idem, Film Theory: An Introduction, Blackwell Publishers (2000), pp.92-101 and pp. 292-297
4 Early cinema: the colonial gaze and the critical approaches • How the legacy of colonialism influenced the first visual representation of “the Other” by Western filmmakers • Analysis of the attempts made by Western filmmakers in developing and experimenting anti-colonial approaches Screening Lumiere Brothers, Vietnemase Children, 1900, 1’ Jean Rouch, Moi Un Noir, 1958, 70’ (group discussion) Nanna Verhoeff, “Deconstructing the Other” in Idem, The West in Early Cinema. After the Beginning, Amsterdam University Press (2006), pp. 55-76
5 European migrants in Hollywood • The cinema of Ernst Lubitch, Michael Curtiz, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder • Asia Minor migration: the case of Elia Kazan and his film America America Screenings Michael Curtiz, Casablanca, 1942, 102’ (group discussion) Elia Kazan, America America, 1963, 174’ Gene D. Phillips, “Prologue: The Promised Land: European Filmmakers in Hollywood” in Idem, Exiles in Hollywood. Major European Film Directors in America. Lehigh University Press (1998), pp.13-20 
 Pascale R. Bos, “Adopted Memory: The Holocaust, Postmemory, and Jewish Identity in America” in Marie-Aude Baronian, Stephan Besser, Yolande Jnsen (ed.) Diaspora and Memory Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics, Rodopi Editions (2007), pp.97-108 
 Optional reading: Sylvie Rollet, “Imaginary Lands and Figures of Exile in Elia Kazan’s America America” in Diaspora and Memory: Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics, cit., pp.167-174 

6 Escaping from Fascism: Luis Bunuel in Mexico • The coming to power of fascism in Europe and the Second World War • The flight to America of several European cinema directors • The specific case of Spanish director Luis Bunuel, who after USA decided to move to Mexico Screenings: Luis Bunuel, Los Olvidados (aka The Forgotten Ones), 1950, 76’ Luis Bunuel, Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1954, 89’ (group discussion) Rebecca M. Schreiber, “Allegories of Exile, Political Refugees and Resident Imperialists” in Idem, Cold War Exiles in Mexico: U.S. Dissidents and the Culture of Critical Resistance, Minnesota Univeristy Press (2008), pp.58-100 Glauber Rocha, “Aesthetics of Hunger” in Idem, On Cinema (ed. Ismail Xavier), I.B.Tauris (2019), pp.41-45
7 Post-colonial Cinema from Africa. The cases of Ousmane Sembene, Djibril Diop Mambety, Med Hondo, Souleymane Cisse, Haile Gerima 
 Collective approaches: Black Audio Film Collective and Handsworth Songs (1986) Screenings Black Audio Film Collective, Handsworth Songs, 1986, 61’ 
 Ousmane Sembene, La noire de... (aka Black girl), 1966, 55’ (group discussion Kodwo Eshun, “Afrofuturist Cineculture in an Age of Cultural Revolution” in Petrine A. Straw, Richard J. Powell, David A Bailey (ed.) Back to Black: Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary, New Art Gallery Press (2005), pp.154-162 
 David Murphy, “Africans Filming Africa: Questioning Theories of an Authentic African Cinema” in Elisabeth Ezra, Terry Rowden (ed.) Transnational Cinema: the Film Reader, Routledge (2006), pp.27-38 
 Optional reading: David E. James, “Political Film/Radical Cinema: From Dissent to Revolution”, in Idem, Allegories of cinema: American film in the Sixties, Princeton University Press (1989), pp.166-194 

8 Discussion on preview lessons
9 Week 9: Personal camera: Chantal Akerman and Jonas Mekas New forms of narration in the subjective cinema of the 1970s The use of fragmented narratives and home movies archival material in the cinema of Jonas Mekas The use of epistolary narratives in the “Film-Letters” of Chantel Akerman Screenings Jonas Mekas, Remiscences of a Journey, 1972, 88’ Chantal Akerman, News from Home, 1976, 88’ (group discussion) David E. James, “Jonas Mekas: Filmmaker”, in Idem, Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties, Princeton University Press (1989), pp.104-118 Hamid Naficy, “Close-Up: Chantal Akerman”, in Idem, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton University Press (2001), pp.111-114
10 Palestinian Cinema in Exile. The specific case of the Palestinian cinema, caught between diaspora and resistance The case of Palestinian women directors: Basma Alsharif, Rosalind Nashashibi, Mai Masri and analysis of some excerpts from their films Screenings Excerpts from films of Basma Alsharif, Rosalind Nashashibi, Mai Masri (to be selected) Elia Suleiman, Chronicles of Disappearance, 1996, 88’ (group discussion Hamid Naficy, “Close-up: Elia Suleiman” in Idem, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton University Press (2001), pp.116-117 Elia Suleiman, “A Cinema of Nowhere”, in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2000), pp.95-101 Colleen Jankovic, Nadia Awad, “Queer/Palestinian Cinema: a Critical Conversation on Palestinian Queer and Women’s Filmmaking”, in Camera Obscura 80, Vol. 27/2 (2012), pp.135-143
11 Latin-American Exiles in Paris Fascist military regimes come to power in several countries of Latin America in 1960s and 1970s. Several Latin-American directors are forced to flee their countries and find refuge in Europe, especially in Paris. Analysis of the new Cinema language created by these directors, specially so-called “Third Cinema” (Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino) and “Imperfect Cinema” (Julio Garcia Espinosa Screenings Raul Ruiz, Dialogues of Exiles, 1975, 100’ Fernando Solanas, Tangos of Exile, 1986, 119’ (group discussion) Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Toward a Third Cinema”, Cinéaste Vol.4 n.3 (1970-71), pp.1-10 Jacques Ranciere, The Emancipated Spectator, Verso (2009), pp.1-24
12 Journeys of Transition: between Turkey and Europe The history of migration from Turkey to Europe, after the 1961 agreement with Western Germany. The creation of a new troubled identity and its reflections in Cinema Screenings Yılmaz Güney, Şerif Gören, Yol, 1982, 124’ Fatih Akın, The Edge of Heaven, 2007, 122’ (group discussion) Gesa Zinn, “Souls in Transit: Exilic Journeys in Fatih Akın’s The Edge of Heaven”, in Gesa Zinn, Maureen T. Stanley (ed.), Exile through a Gendered Lens: Women’s Displacement in Recent European History, Literature, and Cinema, Palgrave Macmillan (2012), pp. 119-142 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: the Time-Image, University of Minnesota Press (1989), pp.215-224
13 Migration and Cinema after 2015 EU-Turkey deal in 2016 and its consequences 
 Self representation in contemporary migration cinema 
 Screenings Khaled Abdulwahed, Amel Alzakout, Purple Sea, 2020, 67’ 
 Gianfranco Rosi, Fire at Sea, 2016, 114’
14 Final presentations
15 Review of the semester
16 Review of the semester

 

Course Notes/Textbooks
Suggested Readings/Materials

Hamid Naficy, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001

 

EVALUATION SYSTEM

Semester Activities Number Weigthing
Participation
1
20
Laboratory / Application
Field Work
Quizzes / Studio Critiques
Portfolio
Homework / Assignments
1
30
Presentation / Jury
1
50
Project
Seminar / Workshop
Oral Exams
Midterm
Final Exam
1
Total

Weighting of Semester Activities on the Final Grade
3
100
Weighting of End-of-Semester Activities on the Final Grade
Total

ECTS / WORKLOAD TABLE

Semester Activities Number Duration (Hours) Workload
Theoretical Course Hours
(Including exam week: 16 x total hours)
16
3
48
Laboratory / Application Hours
(Including exam week: '.16.' x total hours)
16
0
Study Hours Out of Class
14
1
14
Field Work
0
Quizzes / Studio Critiques
0
Portfolio
0
Homework / Assignments
0
Presentation / Jury
1
23
23
Project
1
35
35
Seminar / Workshop
0
Oral Exam
0
Midterms
0
Final Exam
1
0
    Total
120

 

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES AND PROGRAM QUALIFICATIONS RELATIONSHIP

#
Program Competencies/Outcomes
* Contribution Level
1
2
3
4
5
1

To be able to have fundamental knowledge about narrative forms in cinema, digital and interactive media, and the foundational concepts relevant to these forms.

X
2

To be able to create narratives based on creative and critical thinking skills, by using the forms and tools of expression specific to cinema and digital media arts.

3

To be able to use the technical equipment and software required for becoming a specialist/expert in cinema and digital media.

4

To be able to perform skills such as scriptwriting, production planning, use of the camera, sound recording, lighting and editing, at the basic level necessary for pre-production, production and post-production phases of an audio-visual work; and to perform at least one of them at an advanced level.

5

To be able to discuss how meaning is made in cinema and digital media; how economy, politics and culture affect regimes of representation; and how processes of production, consumption, distribution and meaning-making shape narratives.

X
6

To be able to perform the special technical and aesthetic skills at the basic level necessary to create digital media narratives in the fields of interactive film, video installation, experimental cinema and virtual reality.

7

To be able to critically analyze a film or digital media artwork from technical, intellectual and artistic perspectives.

X
8

To be able to participate in the production of a film or digital media artwork as a member or leader of a team, following the principles of work safety and norms of ethical behavior.

9

To be able to stay informed about global scientific, social, economic, cultural, political, institutional and industrial developments.

10

To be able to develop solutions to legal, scientific and professional problems surrounding the field of cinema and digital media.

11

To be able to use a foreign language to communicate with colleagues and collect data in the field of cinema and digital media. ("European Language Portfolio Global Scale", Level B1).

X
12

To be able to use a second foreign language at the medium level.

13

To be able to connect the knowledge accumulated throughout human history to the field of expertise.

*1 Lowest, 2 Low, 3 Average, 4 High, 5 Highest

 


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