The Undergraduate Certificate in International Film Studies is organized around three conceptual and methodological elements:
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Introduction to Film Studies
Each student is required to take one film class designated as an introduction to Film Studies (click here for Courses). This course will not only introduce students to the history of film, but to the technical vocabulary of film study, from basic principles of mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound to more theoretical questions of narrative, authorship, and formal design, as well as broader considerations concerning the nature of the image and visual language. This component of the Undergraduate Certificate in International Film Studies also introduces students to the appropriate techniques of film analysis and strategies of analytical expression.
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Comparative International Film
Students will be required to take Film Studies courses from several different national film traditions (click here for Courses) and to explore cinema as an international art form. Students will examine the earliest days of filmmaking in the late nineteenth century when the language of film was basically uniform, the national film styles that began to emerge during and after World War I, as well as the new internationalization of film today that puts, for example, Chinese and American film languages in dialogue with each other.
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Certificate Capstone Project
In the final Film Studies course that a student takes and plans to count as part of the Undergraduate Certificate in International Film Studies, the student will complete a research paper under the guidance of the faculty member teaching the course (click here for Certificate Capstone Project).
