2024 - Summer

Film Journalism (Session 1)

Course Number: SS1: JOUR-UA 202.001

Day & Time: Tue/Thu - 3:30-7:00pm

Location: 20 Cooper Sq., Room 655

Instructor: Craigh Barboza

Syllabus: Download

Albert Course Number: 4946

This course is designed for students with a serious interest in writing about movies for print and digital media. A capacity to laugh at deadline pressure —or at quips and witty retorts coming from the back row of the movie theater— is also required. Students collaborate with peers on key projects, pitch in to shape stories and come up with ideas for their own articles, reporting on a variety of film topics. Beyond screening contemporary and essential films, students will be asked to engage in close readings of important critical works by François Truffaut, Pauline Kael, Peter Bogdanovich, Molly Haskell and Donald Bogle that will deepen their understanding of cinema as an art form. This course equips students with a working knowledge of the film industry they will report on, as well as the ability to identify and describe major movements and pioneering artists. Students attend and cover the 2024 Tribeca Festival. (The class is pre-approved for press credentials.) Other planned class trips include Film at Lincoln Center, home of Film Comment magazine, and the Criterion Collection, a catalog that’s come to function “as a kind of film Hall of Fame.” We do topic-inspired lessons, presentations and pop-up workshops on journalism skills and ethics. Guest speakers will offer guidance on reporting techniques, the forces transforming modern film and the purpose of criticism. By the time the course credits roll, students will have raised their cinema I.Q. and completed several publishable, well-sourced articles.