Unit name | Francophone Women Directors: Documentary Filmmaking |
---|---|
Unit code | FREN30111 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Dr. Albertine Fox |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of French |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will allow students to study documentaries by Francophone women directors from the 1990s to the present day. It will introduce students to the history and theory of documentary filmmaking, covering cinéma vérité and direct cinema, the essay film, and more personal essayistic modes. It will also provide an introduction to feminist documentary filmmaking with a focus on the women’s movement of the early 1970s and feminist experimental filmmaking practices. Students will explore ways in which the chosen directors engage with contemporary political and social issues connected to the representation of women’s experience. They will also examine each film’s interrogation of key themes (these might include issues of race, class, age, alienation and community) on a formal level. Questions of truth, authenticity and performance will be considered through reference to voice, storytelling and representational choices that both challenge and exploit techniques deployed in mainstream narrative cinema. Students will develop an advanced understanding of the basic tenets of documentary film theory from a gendered perspective, while furthering their skills in critical thinking, oral presentation and close analysis. A varied range of critical perspectives will be discussed through the study of set French-language films and theoretical texts, and secondary readings will be in English and French.
Aims:
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Teaching methods will include mini-lectures, seminars, small group work, class discussions and independent study. Occasional screenings will be arranged when necessary.
Weekly 2-hour seminars
Summative assessment:
Prepare and present a 15 minute film review with clips (this will be done in small groups for a group mark), 15 mins (25%), testing ILOs 1-5
1 essay, 3000 words (75%), testing ILOs 1-6
Alter, Nora M. and Timothy Corrigan (eds), Essays on the Essay Film (Columbia University Press, 2017).
Bruzzi, Stella, New Documentary, 2nd edn (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2006).
Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey, Women Filmmakers of the African & Asian Diaspora: Decolonizing the Gaze, Locating Subjectivity (Southern Illinois University Press, 1997).
Nichols, Bill, Introduction to Documentary, 3rd edn (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2017).
Pallister, Janis L. and Ruth A. Hottell (eds.), French-speaking Women Documentarians: A Guide (Peter Lang, 2005).
Tarr, Carrie, with Brigitte Rollet, Cinema and the Second Sex: Women’s Filmmaking in France in the 1980s and 1990s ([2001] London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).