Curating Documentary Film

FaculteitFaculty of Humanities

NiveauBachelor

Studiejaar2026-2027

Beschrijving

Course goals

After completion of this course, the student has:

gained knowledge and understanding of the theoretical foundations of the field of documentary film studies and film curation;

gained knowledge and understanding of historical and contemporary documentary film, and are aware of the social and cultural contexts of production, exhibition, and reception of documentary film;

learned and practiced analysing documentary film critically and in relation to scholarly, institutional, and social debates;

learned to conceptualize a clear and answerable research question;

learned to communicate clearly and convincingly in writing and present orally to a diverse audience.

Content

In this hands-on course, you will learn to curate a public screening series of documentary films. As a group, we will approach documentary films not only as mediations of reality but also as material and institutional objects that are produced, distributed, and used within different political, cultural, and institutional frameworks. You will engage with a broad range of examples, from early scientific and ethnographic films to activist media and contemporary works shaped by artificial intelligence. Each week centres on a particular set of functions and practices—such as documenting, instructing, mobilizing, reenacting, remembering, and remixing—that invite you to consider the multiple lives and impacts of documentary films.

You will take on two roles in this course: as a critical thinker who can apply film theories and methods of textual analysis to documentary film, and as a curator who can translate scholarly expertise into a film series for a non-academic audience. To put what you have learned into practice, you will curate a short documentary film program, considering selection, programming, and contextual framing for a public screening. In addition, the assignment invites you to reflect on this process in writing, situating your program within broader debates about the uses and meanings of documentary cinema today.

The course combines screenings, lectures, seminars, and a site visit to IDFA. Screenings introduce a range of documentary forms and their social, political, and aesthetic dimensions. Lectures and discussions provide theoretical grounding and historical context, addressing how documentary films function as tools of knowledge, activism, and persuasion. The visit to IDFA will enable you to experience current developments in documentary filmmaking. In seminars, you will collaboratively analyse case studies, apply concepts from documentary theory and curation, and develop your own curated program under the instructor's supervision.

This course is the second course in the specialisation track Doing Media Heritage: Texts, Institutions, Curation.

Additional information

Priority rules
This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you
- are a student in the BA Media and Culture and this course is part of your specialisation (verdiepingspakket)
- are a student in the BA Liberal Arts and Sciences or Taal- en Cultuurstudies and this course is part of your specialisation (kernpakket)

In all other situations, you will be placed on a waiting list if you enrol in this course. For any remaining slots in the course, lots are drawn among the students on the waiting list.

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