For the first time this year, the University of Malta will offer a degree dedicated completely to film studies. Sandra Aquilina talks to the programme coordinator Gloria Lauri-Lucente.

When she returned from the University of Michigan several years ago, Gloria Lauri-Lucente noticed two things that she felt were missing at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Malta.

One was a degree in Comparative Literature, the other a degree dedicated completely to film studies.

“I thought it was a pity that the Faculty was missing these two programmes,” says the deputy dean of the Faculty of Arts. Four years ago, the comparative literature programme – entitled Literary Tradition and Popular Culture – came into being.

And now, the Masters Programme in Film Studies, a first for the University, will open this October with the support of the Ministry for Tourism and the Film Commission.

Not that the University did not previously cater for students with an interest in film studies.

For many years, first thanks to the work of Saviour Catania and later also to Lauri-Lucente herself, individual units in film were on offer as part of various other degree programmes. But these did not lead to a degree in its own right. The MA in Film Studies sets out to fill this gap.

What makes this programme particularly innovative is its unique combination of theory and practice, says Lauri-Lucente, who designed the programme and will be coordinating the degree.

Offered as a part-time evening taught Masters degree over six semesters, the programme’s theoretical components will include filmic analysis, the history of cinema, film adaptations of literary texts and critical analysis of film.

Students will be introduced to the key moments in the history of cinema and the principal interpretive approaches to film, to be explored in relation to specific genres, auteurs, contexts of production as well as spectatorship.

This component will draw on the expertise of academics at the university as well as other renowned international film scholars and experts, such as Ian Christie from Birkbeck College and Alberto Ostini, the scriptwriter for some of the leading TV series and comics in Italy.

The practical element of the programme, too, will be lectured taught by foreign academics and accomplished film practitioners.

These will include Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia, winners of the Critics Week Grand Prix Award of the 2013 edition of Cannes Film Festival with their feature film Salvo.

What makes this programme particularly innovative is its unique combination of theory and practice

Gigi Roccati, whose documentary Road to Kabul won the Award for the Best Independent War Documentary of Italian Television by the Ministry of Defence and RAI TV, will also be lecturing on the programme.

The practical modules will cover all the stages of film-making, from scriptwriting to the visualisation and actual production of a short film on the screen. The programme will impart hands-on skills such as script-writing, editing and production.

“The degree is intended as a springboard, it is not concentrated on one area.”

The degree caters for the interests of students who would like to acquire formal background and training in filming as well as others who pursue PhDs and become film scholars or film critics, but also for those already working in the field who wish to become ould like to film scholars or film critics. This helps them to refine their hands-on skills and acquire formal background and training.

The scriptwriting component is open to any topic with a distinctly Maltese theme. “That way we will also hopefully be contributing to the creationdevelopment of an indigenous Maltese film industry.”

To ensure one-to-one supervision for scriptwriting, the number of students per year will be capped at 15. Candidates will need to be holders of a first degree with a second class grading or better.

The course format is very flexible, with only five compulsory units out of a total of 90. The compulsory units will cover transitional moments in the history of film, research methods, screenwriting and the production of a short film.

Elective modules will allow students on the programme to immerse themselves in some truly fascinating subjects such as world cinema, auteur theory, comics, the graphic novel and cinema, location-based filming, the rapport between film, literature and other arts and audio-visual translation strategies.

The final project can be either a dissertation or a project which is submitted following an internship or a placement with a media company, possibly even abroad.

Apart from coordinating, Lauri-Lucente herself will also be lecturing on the programme. Currently associate professor and head of the department of Italian at the University of Malta, she teaches courses in film studies, Italian literature, and comparative literature.

She is also director of the Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies, deputy dean of the Faculty of Arts and coordinator for the Masters in Literary Tradition and Popular Culture.

Both this and the new Master’s in Film Studies are taught degrees, reflecting the general trend internationally, even in the UK, she says.

The Faculty of Arts – one of the largest faculties at the University of Malta – is a growing faculty, she says.

Apart from the strong increase in taught MAs, new departments and programmes have also come into being under the deanship of Dominic Fenech, who is always supportive of such initiatives.

Four years ago the faculty introduced the MA in Literary Tradition and Popular Culture, the first interdepartmental taught MA that brings together seven departments from the Faculty of Arts. The MA in Mediterranean Studies is another interdepartmental programme that came into being recently.

Is the programme being designed as a reaction to growing pressures to make students more employable – or will it allow students to immerse themselves in the subject’s academic depths?

For the programme coordinator, the two aspects are not mutually exclusive.

“Most of our degrees are not vocational; we strongly believe in the value of the humanities. However the faculty still enjoys a very good and excellent employability record in the most diverse of fields,” she says.

For more information visit www.um.edu.mt/arts/overview/PMAFLMPET5-2015-6-0.

Applications are now open online and the first deadline is July 23. For further information send an e-mail to Gloria.lauri-lucente@um.edu.mt.

www.um.edu.mt/apply