In the UK there are several different courses covering Film Studies and Media Studies that can be followed by school and college students aged 14-19 or older (i.e. adult students outside the university system). This page deals with those courses most relevant to studying global film.

WJEC (Welsh Examining Body) A Level Film Studies

WJEC offers an Advanced Level Film Studies qualification. The new specification, which began teaching in September 2008, requires study of both British and American Cinema as part of its first year and aspects of ‘World Cinema’ in its second year. The specification offers various options such as the study of ‘National Cinemas’. Examination questions will focus on the following in 2010-11:

• Bollywood, 1990 – present
• Iranian Cinema, 1990 – present
• Japanese Cinema, 1950 – 1970 (this site has entries on the following films:

The Lady of Musashino (Mizoguchi, 1951)

Floating Clouds (1955) and Late Chrysanthemums (1954) (both Naruse)

Flowing (Naruse, 1956)

Woman in the Rumour (Mizoguchi, 1957)

A Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse, 1960)

The Naked Island (Shindo,1960) 

An Actor’s Revenge (Ichikawa, 1963)

• Mexican Cinema, 1990 – present.

Other aspects are also covered and the following films are offered for critical study:

Les Enfants du Paradis (Carné, France, 1945)
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, Algeria/Italy, 1966)
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles, US, 1971)
Solaris (Tarkovsky, USSR, 1972)
Happy Together (Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong, 1997)
Talk to Her (Almodovar, Spain, 2002)
Morvern Callar (Ramsay, UK, 2002)

We hope to offer some support to students approaching such study.

Module FM3 involves a small scale research project. There is a variety of material on this website, including discussion of auteurs such as Zhang Yimou and Alejandro Amenábar.

WJEC GCSE Film Studies

GCSE courses are studied in the UK from 14-17 as one or two year courses. The new Film Studies course began teaching in September 2008. It has two main areas of study for examination (there is also an element of internally assessed work). One focuses on a specific genre, which for the first few years will be the ‘disaster movie’. The other focuses on a film from outside Hollywood chosen from a list of options. The first list comprises:

Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France/Germany, 2001)
Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, UK/Germany/US, 2002)
The Devil’s Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, Mexico/Spain, 2001)
Ghosts (Nick Broomfield, UK, 2006)
Goodbye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker, Germany, 2003)
Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, UK/France, 1999)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2001)
Tsotsi (Gavin Hood, South Africa/UK, 2005)
Yasmin (Kenneth Glenaan, UK/Germany, 2004)
Whale Rider (Niki Caro, New Zealand/Germany, 2002)

A Level Media Studies

A Level syllabuses (taken in two parts as AS and A2) allow students to choose titles for independent study and there are opportunities for students to choose to work on aspects of global cinema. The new A2 syllabus from the OCR Awarding Body has a specific option dealing with Global Media.