Film and Revolution: World Cinemas

Catalog description

For decades, filmmakers in non-Western countries have wielded the cinema as a source of power, a kind of “weapon” for combating the forces of Western imperialism, racism, and ideology in order to reshape national identities, politics, and cultures. This course explores this struggle by analyzing the cultural and political forces that shaped the “Third Cinema” movement, which called for a revolutionary mode of film-making in the so-called Third World beginning in the 1960s and 1970s. The goal is to offer students a global perspective on a wide range of issues in the Third Cinema movement that stem from the influence of imperial powers—namely, France, England, and the United States—on popular and experimental narrative, animated, and nonfiction films, and the post- and anti-colonial film cultures of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Part of our analysis of this topic will also touch on Native American and First Nations film-making, as well as the legacy of the Third Cinema movement in perceptions of the media in our contemporary moment.