Course Spotlights
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Course Spotlights *
This course provides explorative and analytical studies on the theme of movies about making movies, or self-reflexive cinema. From blockbusters to “indies,” from art cinema to home videos, these are the films that salute, portray, comment on the film industry within the story itself, or assume the formal filmmaking process through self-reflexive film language. We will examine these films in three ways: 1) as a subgenre to recognize all aspects of the film industry; 2) survey how the film industry promotes, represents, and satirizes itself; 3) engage in topical issues and systemic problems in the studio system, such as gender disparity, to contemplate how movies are made, marketed, consumed and experienced. (Image: Sherlock Jr., 1924, Metro Pictures)
Advanced Undergraduate Course
Movies about Movies, the Film Industry
This hands-on production course introduces the wide range of elements, structures, and history of experimental film and video art. Beginning with the European avant-gardes of the 1920s; proceeding to the emergence of postwar American underground films; and concluding with the advent of video art in the gallery, this course seeks to understand the historical, social, and institutional forces that gave rise to various oppositional, political, and radical cinemas. In addition to screenings and discussions relating to avant-garde film and video, students will work on their own experimentations with the cinematic medium and new media. (Image: Les plages d'Agnès, 2008, Ciné-Tamaris)
Advanced Production Course
Experimental Film and Video
The first half of the course examines how Spanish director Luis Buñuel created provocative films that critiqued society during three phases of his career: the early surrealist period of the 1920s, the Mexican melodrama of the 1950s and 1960s, and the late period of European art cinema. In the later part of the semester, we look at animator Satoshi Kon’s feature-length films and unpack how he uses surrealism as a plot device—gliding between memory, reality and dreams, tricking spectators—to explore the unlimited, magical possibilities and metamorphoses of the fantasy/animation genre.
Advanced Undergraduate Course
Surrealist Cinema of Luis Buñuel and Satoshi Kon
General Education Course (Arts & Humanities)
International Film Movements
This class offers a survey of the historical development of the French New Wave (la nouvelle vague) and Taiwan New Cinema (tai wan xin dian ying) in their social, political, and cultural contexts, and unravels the unbalanced power dynamics between East and West. The course will also tackle the term “movement” in its literal sense and look at on-screen representations of issues relating to travel, border-crossings, and migrant workers. (Image: What Time Is It There?, 2001, Homegreen Films)
Student Testimonials
“Your classes were some of my favorites in my undergrad career at SUNY Albany...If I wasn’t so far into my education when I first attended your International Film Movements class, I would have considered switching majors!”
— White Female Student, Non-traditional
“I loved this class, and thank you so much for teaching films with kindness.”
— International Student
All Courses Taught
Upper Level
Movies about Movies, the Film Industry
Women in Cinema
Surrealist Cinema of Luis Buñuel and Satoshi Kon
Wes Anderson and Bong Joon-ho
Transnational East Asian Cinema and Food Culture
Film Remakes Theory
Platforms, or the Future of Film & TV
Film and Video Production
Experimental Film and Video
History and Practice of Video Art I
Basic 16mm Filmmaking
Advanced Filmmaking
Women and Experimental Film
Lower Level
Introduction to Film Studies
Arts of the Motion Picture
Film History
Film Genres
International Film Movements
Radical Film Movements: 1960s and 1970s Cinema