Arts discipline Film Studies - BA Arts, Culture and Media

The Film Studies track in the Bachelor’s programme Arts, Culture and Media offers a wide variety of perspectives on moving images. Our students study the history, theory, and aesthetics of film and audiovisual media. They learn about the emotional and cognitive dimensions of film and why cinema and television matter in society at large. They are also encouraged to make audiovisual essays.

The Film Studies track is known for providing excellent teaching and supervision to a highly diverse student body. It offers an established network for international exchanges and traineeships. Moreover, the university is home to a film archive with a unique collection of films, cinematic devices, posters, and literature available for hands-on education and research.

During our three-year Bachelor’s programme, students participate in the required modules for Film Studies (listed below), select a second arts discipline, and also attend integrated arts courses highlighting the role of arts in society. The BA track also allows access to the MA programme Film and Contemporary Audiovisual Media.

Please visit our Facebook and X pages for more information on our programme, including the current lineup of screenings, talks, and other special events.

Bachelor's Programme (Film Studies)

Film Ia: Film Analysis (5 EC)

This module offers students an introduction to film as an art form. It covers fundamental aspects of film style and form, such as cinematography, editing, sound, and narration. Analysing both classic and contemporary films, students learn why and how moving images have certain effects on viewers.

Film Ib: Film Analysis (5 EC)

This course is the second half of Film I. It continues the introduction to film analysis and focuses on implementing newly acquired knowledge through weekly analyses of classic and contemporary films from across the globe.

Film II: Film History (10 EC)

This course provides an overview of film history from its beginnings in the 1890s to the present. It covers key film genres, styles, and periods, ranging from early cinema to postwar European art cinema, and from classical Hollywood to cinemas of the global South. We also devote thorough attention to documentaries, experimental cinema, and animation. Not least, the course foregrounds key issues and debates within film and media historiography.

Film III: Film Theory (10 EC)

This course analyses major developments in theories of film, television, and new media. Engaging with major works of film and media theory from the early twentieth century to the present, students learn how key thinkers from across the globe have conceived of cinema and other audiovisual media.

Advanced Seminar: Film (5 EC)

This course examines some of the major critical approaches to science fiction (SF) cinema, with a strong emphasis on the postcolonial and gendered constructions of scientist-explorers, “aliens”, and other non-human characters. Although the global canon of SF films is heavily indebted to Hollywood, the course will juxtapose western films with comparative SF titles from Japan, the former Soviet Union, South Korea, India, South Africa, indigenous filmmakers from across North America, etc.

Arts in Practice : Film (10 EC)

In this course s tudents learn to use and thereby sharpen their analytical skills in the context of practical audiovisual projects. Parallel to the acquirement of knowledge on historical aspects and current debates and practices of videographic work, the course comprises three distinct practice-based parts and ultimately aims at theoretical considerations in a final report.

Bachelor’s Thesis (10 EC)

The Bachelor’s thesis is an individual research project on film and its relation to aesthetics, culture, history, and society. Identifying a central research question, students interpret and incorporate material from primary and secondary sources, employing methods and skills developed within their studies.

Permanent Film Staff

Dr. D. (Dan) Leberg - Screen acting, cognitive film studies, film adaptations, political filmmaking.

Dr. J. (Julian) Hanich - Film phenomenology, emotion studies, film aesthetics, film style, genre studies, imagination in film.

Dr. M. (Miklós) Kiss - Narrative and cognitive approaches to film, embodied cognition, contemporary complex cinema, film analysis, videographic film studies (audiovisual essay), visualization (narrative mapping), 3D cinema.

Dr. S. (Sergio) Rigoletto - Queer cinemas, star studies, film festival studies, film aesthetics.

Prof. Dr. A.M.A. (Annie) van den Oever - Film and media theory, philosophy, and aesthetics. Head of the Film Archive.

Dr. L. (Laliv) Melamed - Non-fiction film and media, everyday and emerging media, Middle East, post-colonial and settler colonial studies, mediated intimacies.