COMM223

This course is a 4-credit course that studies contemporary cinema from Africa, Latin America and Middle East. This survey-type course is designed to introduce students to basic film concepts and techniques of critical analysis as well as exposing them to the trends of cinema of resistance that developed in these three regions and the visual dialectics of different cultures. Cinema of the Other: Cinema of Latin America, Africa and Middle East will explore the social, political, and artistic context in which filmmaking is embedded. Students will study the common socio-political pattern that helped the growth of national film industries in these regions as well as focus on the distinctive issues of each cinema. Through the deconstruction of selected group of films students will concentrate on issues that include post-colonialism, expressions of national identity, representation of moral values, and censorship, as well as aesthetics and the role of the audience. We will compare the ways in which the cultural references of different societies shape the modes of filmic representation. In order to understand the contemporary world students need to comprehend the social and political struggles of the developing world.