This course explores possibilities and pitfalls of empathy in cinema and other audiovisual media. Focusing on cinematic framings of migration and visualizations of global connection, it analyzes how movement, borders, and settlement figure in different genres and formats. Case studies based on weekly screenings, mostly of contemporary productions form German and European cinema, range from ethnographic documentary to globetrotting adventure films, from diasporic cinema to the international avantgarde, from fringe productions to mainstream popular cinema as well as new forms of presentation such as video installations and online video streaming. Scrutinizing labels such as “national cinema,” “transnational cinema,” “interzone,” “European cinema,” “foreign film,” or “world cinema,” students acquire a vocabulary of analysis that enables them to read cinematic geography in correspondence with the formation of social space and practice. Language contact and translation constitute a crucial aspect in unpacking cross-border collaborations and interactions. Raising questions about location, circulation, and audience, the course combines film analysis and theoretical readings with an element of research and fieldwork that enables students to report on material of their own choice such as a film festival, digital platform, or audience experience. – Taught in English.
Image: Manifesto (Julian Rosefeldt, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2015)