Project Development March 2003

The MA course in Film, Television and Visual Media at Birkbeck, which is being modified with the support of GLAADH, began twelve years ago at the British Film Institute and as a consequence has inherited a strong British focus. Since its move to the School of History of Art department (now School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media) at Birkbeck three years ago, the course has maintained its western orientation, although there is some consideration of post-colonial issues and some seminars on world cinema. The aim was to build on this and add a new module which deals with world cinema in a more thorough way.

There are four options within the MA, one of which used to be Laura Mulvey's option on Women and Film. This has been withdrawn from the course and in its place a new option has been developed called Perspectives in World Cinema. Laura Mulvey has taken the lead in re-writing this option which still includes a strong element on women artists and issues of representation, yet establishes a shift away from a western context.

In order to facilitate the introduction of this course, the department needed to develop film resources for teaching World Cinema at Postgraduate level. The remit of the GLAADH project was thus to establish a collection of films on VHS and DVD which will broaden the range of references available to students studying new and developing cinema and which will allow new and existing courses to be developed in diverse and flexible ways. The new films will provide a wider selection of films in the 2002 - 2003 MA options with students able to select from the new titles for their dissertations in the summer term 2003.

Perspectives in World Cinema was run for the first time in Spring 2003, with Mulvey looking at aspects of African cinema, women Iranian filmmakers and representations of Arab women in film and television, and a visiting scholar, Lucia Nagib, teaching Brazilian film. New films have been purchased and there are plans to expand into films of the Far East. Feedback has already been very good, with the changes so far found to be stimulating and challenging. However, the long term impact of a move away from a course closely identified with a single 'author' (Mulvey), to one that permits greater flexibility in terms of material and delivery, is yet to be registered.

Birkbeck is also in talks with the School of Oriental and African Studies' Anthropology department about the possible development of an MA course on World Cinema which would be run jointly between SOAS and Birkbeck. Meanwhile, another outcome of the project has been the establishment of closer relations between the departments of Art History and Continuing Education at Birkbeck, which offers a raft of courses from diplomas to undergraduate BA courses in media studies. Options in World Cinema could constitute a bridge between departments, enabling closer links and the effective pooling of resources.

A departmental film bibliography and distribution information, plus outlines of their critical treatment within the course will be made available on the GLAADH website.

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