Film Studies Courses
Study online & in London

Godard’s definition of cinema is particularly apt for documentary. But today, documentary is at a crossroads, with first person, self-shot, iPhone filmmaking at one end of the spectrum and mega budget, celebrity-fronted or focused storytelling at the other. Is documentary up to the challenges of an era where facts themselves are in doubt – or is it the last hope of an otherwise overly massaged media, accused of ‘fake news’? When is factual filmmaking no longer factual? Reality television and co-called ‘constructed reality’ increasingly call into question the veracity of documentary protagonists increasingly cast – and paid – to be entertaining. Through the lens of current and recent releases, we look at animated documentary, activist documentary, archival documentary, and autobiographical documentary among other recent developments - and ask if the form has a future.







Dr Paul Kerr began his career working at the BFI, working in the National Film Archive, and as a freelance film and TV critic and lecturer. He then spent over 20 years as a producer and director, making arts and history programmes, including dozens of documentaries, for the BBC and Channel 4, as well as international broadcasters. More recently he was a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Middlesex University until 2024. His books include Hollywood Independent: How the Mirisch Company Changed Cinema (2023); The Hollywood Film Industry; and MTM: Quality Television and two co-authored dossiers, Multiplatforming Public Service Broadcasting and Drama Documentary. He has published articles in journals including Screen, Transnational Cinemas, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and Critical Studies in Television as well as The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Observer, Broadcast, NME and The New Statesman.

This class introduces you to a range of themes and issues in European cinema, including art cinema, national cinema, movements and new waves, authorship, popular cinema and genre, along with key developments in European film history. We will also be thinking about key films and filmmakers, the canon of European cinema and its cultural status, and a range of critical accounts of European cinema.

For anyone growing up in or living through the 1970s there were plenty of series on TV to watch, despite the limited numbers of channels available at the time. Enduring classics such as Doctor Who, which began in the 1960s and continues to this day, to crime dramas such as The Sweeney and its follow-up Minder, not to mention The Professionals and The New Avengers, to comedies like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Goodies, The Good Life, To the Manor Born and Fawlty Towers, as well as science fiction dramas such as Blake’s 7 and Space 1999, the 70s was a rich decade in terms of television production. So, if you want to forget the oil crisis, power cuts, the 3-day week and the ‘winter of discontent’, but remember Punk, Ska and a whole host of what are now seen as ‘cult’ TV programmes, then put on your donkey jacket and your beige flares, mount your Raleigh chopper bicycle (sadly I was only allowed a ‘Jeep’) and join me for four weeks of 70s nostalgia.

Defining itself around themes such as realism, class and national identity, and differentiating itself from Hollywood and other national cinemas, British cinema has found critical and popular acclaim both domestically and internationally. This course explores key themes and developments in British cinema, past and present, through a range of films, filmmakers and critical concepts and responses.

Join us as we explore the careers of two of the most significant and influential film directors in the history of British cinema: David Lean and Carol Reed. We will chart their rise through the ranks as they undertook various roles in the British film industry and we will explore what made them such important filmmakers. We will look too at their signature visual styles and analyse in detail some of their most celebrated films.

Both commercial strategy and critical concept, genre provides critics and audiences with a way of distinguishing between types of films and narrative patterns, while affording filmmakers the opportunity to exploit successful formulas. Drawing on key theories of the concept, this course looks at a range of genres, and sub-genres, and the way in which they have evolved through cinema's history.

Have you wondered why a film might have moved you so powerfully or why it looked so stunningly beautiful? Have you wanted to know quite how a film was able to communicate its story to you so effectively? If so, then this advanced level film studies course is for you. It aims to explore in depth the language of cinema, the way in which film connects with its spectators at the level of film form, in other words, film aesthetics. Writers and critics have long asked similar questions, as have filmmakers themselves, and we will follow some of the most celebrated in their quest for answers. We will look briefly at how films are made and at the importance of cinematography, editing, mise en scène and sound, before exploring in depth film’s aesthetic qualities. We will think about the importance of history for the development of film form and we will analyse clips and sequences from individual films so as to better approach and understand film aesthetics.