Filming the Past – the case of Portuguese Documentary Film
Objectives
a) To understand and critically define cinema and its language as a field of studies, and within it the specificity of non- fiction film /Documentary as an expression with its own identity: Documentary Film as a genre of cinema.
b) To undersatand and define Documentary as an Historical movement connected with the ideas of Authenticity and Truth.
c) To stimulate ways of seeing: the use of different strategies and cinematographic dispositifs in portuguese documentary filmmaking.
d) To understand and analyse the artistic, cultural and political contexts associated with specific No
General characterization
Code
02106283
Credits
8.0
Responsible teacher
Catarina Sousa Brandão Alves Costa
Hours
Weekly - 3
Total - 224
Teaching language
English
Prerequisites
Available soon
Bibliography
AUSTIN, Thomas and JONG, Wilma de (2009), Rethinking Documentary: New Perspectives, New Practices, Open University Press.
BEATTIE, Keith (2008) Documentary Display: Re-viewing Nonfiction Film and Video, Wallflower Press.
ROSENTHAL, Alan (ed) / CORNER, John (ed), (2005) New Challenges for Documentary, Manchester, Manchester University Press.
NICHOLS, Bill (1991), Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana Univ. Press
PROSSER, Jon (ed.) (2000), Image-Based Research. A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, Routledge, Falmer Press
Teaching method
By the end of the course, students will be able to
1) Better understand and critically define documentary cinema and its language as a field of studies.
2) Recognize the specificity of non-fiction film a genre of cinema that constructed ideas of truth, authenticity and evidence.
3) Understand and analyze the artistic, cultural and political contexts associated with non-fictional film.
4) Critically discuss how these films construct identity, memory, and historical knowledge.
5) Understand the different forms of narration and the ways direct voices are used.
6) Locate the forms of cinematic rhetoric trough considering how the research, camera work and editing were done.
The course’s learning activities will comprise seminar-style classroom discussions (based on the films) and will include visits to several film archives.
The methodologies include exposition and presentation of the uc contents confronted with film excerts that will be collectivelly discussed. Classes will also reflect on students own ideas and academic projects.
Written reports from viewing films or visiting archives (3) 10% each
One Final Essay Assignment: students will hand in a 4500 - 5000 word-final essay focused on one of the main topics of the course contents – 70%.
Evaluation method
1) Written reports from viewing films (2) 15% each
Deadlines: 2st November and 23th November
Festivals to attend:
Doc Lisboa Film Festival 19-19 October https://doclisboa.org/2023
Mediterranean Women Film Festival 9-16 November https://www.olharesdomediterraneo.org
2) Oral Presentations (with examples from documentary films) of the main ideas for the essay (due to January 2024. Final Essay Assignment: students will hand in a 2,000 word-final essay focused on one of the main topics of the course contents – Essay+Presentation 70% (written work delivered on 20 January 2022 by email to ccsba@fcah.unl.pt
Subject matter
The course will focus on the way the past and memories in the present have been represented in documentary film. Documentary film in its ideas of evidence, ethics and politics highlights historical discourses and uses of the past. The course will discuss several cinematic rhetoric’s related to different historical moments:
1. Nationalistic Representations: the case of II World War refugees
2. Forms of resistance and Repression during Salazar’s regime
3. Women and gender narratives
4. Performing the revolutionary movement: activist cinema
5. Artists, Filmmakers and the Media looking at the revolution
6. Popular Culture, ethnography and rurality: a non-temporal landscape
7. Social Sciences, Archives and the colonial world
8. The world we live on: migration, the city
9. Post-colonial reconfigurations: new and old relations
10. Contemporary Portugal: the peripheric becomes center