Course description This course traces French cinema from the first public film exhibitions through the avant-garde, surrealism, the Golden Age, and contemporary screen culture, while examining the film festival as a cultural institution and global marketplace. Students study how technologies, aesthetic movements, historical events, critical discourse, and systems of production and distribution have shaped French film and its international reception.

Paris serves as an extended classroom: screenings, seminars, museum visits, and location-based study connect course readings to the material history of cinema and the visual culture of the city. In Cannes, students participate in the 80th Festival de Cannes and investigate how festivals organize access, create prestige, frame national and global cinemas, facilitate financing and distribution, and influence which films reach audiences. All required films are subtitled in English. Readings and discussion are in English.

Learning outcomes. By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Trace technological developments in French cinema and place them in historical context.
2. Analyze film form (cinematography, editing, sound, performance, narrative, and mise-en-scène) using appropriate critical vocabulary.
3. Explain how film festivals operate as cultural institutions, professional networks, and marketplaces within the global circulation of cinema.
4. Evaluate how programming, criticism, national representation, authorship, and prizes shape a film’s meaning, visibility, and cultural value.
5. Integrate scholarly readings with evidence from films, museums, cultural sites, panels, press materials, and direct festival observation.
6. Develop and communicate an evidence-based interpretation in written, oral, and creative or multimedia forms.
7. Reflect critically and responsibly on the relationship among cinema, place, history, cultural memory, and lived experience.

Assignments and grading

• Daily analytical journal (Brightspace), connecting films, readings, museums, excursions, and festival observations: 10%
• Daily oral reports, a concise synthesis of screenings, panels, industry activity, and observations: 10%
• Creative final project (short film, multimedia website, digital exhibition, or other approved format), with proposal, workshop, and presentation: 30%
• Director presentation, a historical and critical introduction to an assigned filmmaker: 10%
• Museum/cultural-event presentation, a group briefing delivered before the assigned visit: 10%
• Participation and preparation in all classes, screenings, visits, excursions, and festival meetings: 30%

Required readings

• Alan J. Singerman, French Cinema: The Student’s Book (Focus, 2006), assigned excerpts
• Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist, eds., Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice (Routledge, 2016), assigned excerpts
• Roger Ebert, selected dispatches and criticism from the Cannes Film Festival
• Additional readings, press materials, and program documents on Brightspace

Film viewing and attendance Films are seen together as a group or on Brightspace, except at the festival, where students choose which films to see. Attendance is required at every class, screening, museum or cultural visit, excursion, and festival meeting. There are no unscheduled free days, so an absence cannot ordinarily be made up. Unexcused absences and lateness reduce the participation grade. Tell the instructors promptly about illness or emergencies.

Before your departure Fly to Paris to arrive by May 7, ideally later in the day. You don’t need to take the same flight as other students, but a suggested itinerary will be provided, and suggested flights can be booked through World Travel. The planned round trip is: leave the U.S. May 6, return May 26. You may arrive early or stay later, but lodging is provided only for the program dates. Don’t book flights until the course has met its enrollment goal and you have been admitted.

USA: Thursday, May 6, 2027

Depart for Paris in the evening; arrive Friday, May 7. Please look for flights that have you arrive as late as possible on May 7 since hostel check-in starts at 3pm.

Paris: May 7–10, 2027

MIJE Hostel, 11 Rue du Fauconnier, 75004 Paris · +33 1 42 74 23 45

• Friday, May 7: Arrival and hostel check-in; orientation, course framework, and neighborhood walk. Welcome dinner at 7 pm at Chez Margot (25 Bd Henri IV, 75004). Journal begins.
• Saturday, May 8: France and the beginnings of cinema: Lumière, Méliès, and Feuillade. Before class: Singerman pp. 1–6 and Brightspace selections. Afternoon: Cinémathèque française (51 Rue de Bercy; Métro Bercy, lines 6 and 14).
• Sunday, May 9: Art and film in Paris: the avant-garde, surrealism, and Jean Renoir. Before class: Singerman pp. 7–36. Afternoon: tour of the Grand Rex and Musée Grévin. Dinner at Le Louis-Philippe (66 Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville, 75004).
• Monday, May 10: TGV to Cannes; hostel check-in, festival geography, and Cannes orientation.

Cannes: May 10–23, 2027

Sancta Maria Hostel, Collège International de Cannes, 1 Av. Alexandre Pascal, 06400 Cannes · +33 4 93 47 39 29

Festival screenings and events are finalized once the official schedule and credentials are released; specific activities are announced on site. Most days end with a 5–7 pm wrap-up (oral reports and plans for the next day), followed by Cinéma de la Plage at 9 pm.

• Tuesday, May 11: Festival opening: credentialing, screenings, and public events. Reading: Ebert, selected Cannes dispatch.
• Wednesday, May 12: History and purpose of film festivals. Reading: de Valck, Kredell, and Loist, assigned selection.
• Thursday, May 13: The festival as institution: screenings, panels, access, audiences, and hierarchy. Observation assignment due.
• Friday, May 14: Industry and promotion; American Pavilion activities when available. Final project proposal due.
• Saturday, May 15: Required day trip to Nice: cinema-related sites and the cinematic city; return for festival programming. Cultural-site presentations.
• Sunday, May 16: Required day trip to Monaco and Èze: tourism, landscape, spectacle, and the Riviera on screen. Cultural-site presentations.
• Monday, May 17: Marché du Film: sales, financing, distribution, and international co-production. Market observation due.
• Tuesday, May 18: Global cinema: screenings and panels beyond the French and U.S. industries. Director presentations.
• Wednesday, May 19: Criticism and reception: reviews, press coverage, and audience response. Director presentations.
• Thursday, May 20: Festivals, authorship, and national cinema. Director presentations.
• Friday, May 21: Programming and prizes: selection, juries, prestige, and the closing program. Final project workshop.
• Saturday, May 22: Festival closing day and course synthesis; end-of-festival celebration.

Paris: May 23–26, 2027

MIJE Hostel, 11 Rue du Fauconnier, 75004 Paris · +33 1 42 74 23 45

• Sunday, May 23: TGV to Paris and MIJE check-in; group debrief and journal review. Group dinner, depending on train arrival time.
• Monday, May 24: Photography and film: framing, documentary practice, and still and moving images; exhibition visit and museum presentation. Afternoon: work on projects.
• Tuesday, May 25: Course synthesis, final site visit, and our mini class film festival: final project presentations. Journal complete. Farewell group dinner.
• Wednesday, May 26: Check out of the hostel by 12 noon. All course requirements are completed before check-out.