Film (MA)

Location: Canterbury and Paris

The MA Film programme is taught by experts in Film and seeks to engage you with the key elements that make up the diverse nature of film and moving images.

A cross-cultural, interdisciplinary programme, you spend your first term at our Canterbury campus with full access to its excellent academic and recreational facilities. In the spring term, you relocate to the Paris School of Arts and Culture where you study at the Columbia Global Center (known as Reid Hall) in a historic corner of Montparnasse. You visit Paris in the autumn term, where you meet our Paris staff and are taken on a tour of the city. We offer advice and support to help you relocate to Paris.

The Film MA can also be studied in Canterbury only or Paris only.

The Paris School of Arts and Culture is a specialist, postgraduate centre located in the heart of Paris. We offer interdisciplinary, flexible programmes, taught in English, which take full advantage of all the cultural resources Paris offers. Study trips to the city’s museums, art exhibitions, archives, cinemas and architectural riches are an integral part of your studies.

The interdisciplinary nature of the School means you can choose modules from outside your subject area, broadening your view of your subject. As part of our international community of students and staff, you can take part in regular seminars and talks, write for the student-run literary magazine or help to organise our annual student conference.

Knowledge and understanding

You gain knowledge and understanding of:

• the interpretation and evaluation of film
• concepts and practices integral to the production and reception of films, including authorship, genre, stardom, style, modernity, nationalism and internationalism, with an emphasis on the French context
• processes and conceptualisations of pleasure and identification in film
• debates in film theory, and in philosophy, pertaining to the nature of filmic representation, and its relationship with language, art, emotion, and consciousness
• Modernism as an international movement in literature and art and the role of Paris as a site of modernist experimentation
• the cultural history of modern Paris, as reflected in art and literature.

Intellectual Skills

You develop intellectual skills in:

• the ability to construct arguments and adduce appropriate evidence at a level appropriate for original research
• questionning assumptions generally taken for granted at degree level
• designing and implementing research projects informed by classical humanities approaches, including philosophy, literary theory, and history, with a particular emphasis
• grasping how methods drawn from the social and natural sciences (such as economics and psychology) might inflect or inform research projects within the humanities.

Subject-specific skills

You gain subject-specific skills in:

• analysing, with precision, the images and sounds which comprise films
• analysing narrative and other forms and structures shaping films
• drawing on intellectual knowledge, methods and techniques drawn from other disciplines (such as psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literary theory) in the study of film
• mastery of the vocabularies developed to enhance the analysis and understanding of film and related media
• articulating, in written and oral contexts, an understanding of film commensurate with the first four programme aims noted above
• developing a comprehensive knowledge of the cultural development of modern Paris, as expressed in literature and art.

Transferable skills

You will gain the following transferable skills:

• the ability to communicate effectively in both oral and written contexts, at a level appropriate for the conduct of original research
• the ability to create, manage and self-direct essays and research projects, with the advice and supervision of teaching staff
• the ability to integrate skills of argument and reasoning with those of empirical observation
• the ability to contribute effectively to the exploration of a question or problem in the context of group discussion and analysis, through a combination of intervention, leading of discussion, and focussed attention to others
• the ability to deploy the subject-specific understanding of the nature of film and related media – in relation to, for example, social and ethical questions – in the context of participation in society as workers and citizens
• the ability to use various IT skills, ranging from word-processing and audio-visual presentation to research through web-based sources, at a level of sophistication commensurate with the production of original research
• Living and working in diverse cultural environments: you will participate and work in academic communities in both Canterbury and Paris. You will thus develop cultural knowledge and understanding, flexibility, imagination, resourcefulness and tolerance.

The programme aims to:

• develop your understanding and skills to a notably higher level of sophistication and achievement (appropriate to an Master’s level award) than would be expected at degree level, such that you leave the programme with a substantial analytic and critical understanding of film and film studies
• develop your understanding and skills to the level necessary for entry into a research programme in film
• develop your ability to think independently, argue with clarity and force, to discern areas of research interest within the field and be able to frame viable research questions
• allow you to spend your first term in Canterbury, studying modules in film, and to spend your second term in Paris developing your interest in cinema within the context of city often seen to be central to the aesthetic developments of filmmaking and critical approaches central to the history of the discipline
• consider the impact of French critics and filmmakers on the wider discipline of film
• provoke reflection on areas of critical and theoretical approaches to French cinema and its context
• nurture the intellectual skills cited above in the context of written work (essays and dissertations) as well as in the context of interpersonal interaction (seminars, research papers, supervision)
• provide access to enhanced intercultural awareness and understanding through the opportunity to study in Paris
• provide opportunities for the development of personal, communication and research skills and other key skills appropriate for graduate employment both in industry and in the public sector.