Led by Dr. Catalin Brylla, Principal Lecturer in Film and Television at Bournemouth University, this course is targeted towards documentary practitioners who are either preparing, shooting or editing their documentary, scholars who want to analyse or use documentary as a research methodology, and people who are simply passionate about non-fiction films. Keeping the balance between the theory OF practice and the theory IN practice, each session will include discussions of how concepts relate to formal considerations in documentary filmmaking. Participants will also learn how to critically frame their film practice in order to produce thought-provoking films that have social and cultural implications.

This course takes place across 10 Tuesday Evenings (6.30pm to 9pm) starting 23rd January 2024. You can choose to attend the first 5 sessions of the course only (finishing on 20 February 2024) or to attend all 10 sessions until 5th March 2024.

Indicative Course Outline:

Session 1: Soviet Montage and Poetic Documentary
•    Documentary elements
•    Soviet montage and conceptual watching
•    The poetic documentary

Session 2: Continuity and Observational Documentary
•    Spatial and emotional impact of shot sizes
•    The immersive actuality of continuity
•    The observational documentary

Session 3: Interviews and Participatory Documentary
•    Characterisation through interviews
•    The function of cutaways
•    The participatory documentary

Session 4: Defamiliarisation and Reflexive Documentary
•    Brecht and defamiliarising the audience
•    The reflexive documentary
•    The hybrid documentary

Session 5: Narrative and Point-of-View
•    Narrative structure: story and plot
•    Narrative point-of-view
•    Creating empathy for characters

Session 6: Materialities: Objects and Spaces
•    The mediation of space and time
•    Everyday materialities
•    Memory as trace and event

Session 7: Performativity and Documentary Comedy

•    The performative documentary
•    Documentary comedy and distantiation
•    Parody and mockumentaries
•    The investigative documentary comedy

Session 8: Essay Film
•    Portrait essay
•    Travel essay
•    Diary essay
•    Editorial essay
•    Refractive essay

Session 9: Stereotypes and the Other

•    Social categorisation and documentary narratives
•    Stereotypes and prejudice
•    Types of Others in documentary

•    Industry initiatives
•    Narrative and aesthetics to de-stigmatise communities
•    Perspective-taking and empathy
•    Cross-categorisation, recategorisation, decategorisation

“I enjoyed the course. It was my first documentary course, and the final result was positive. I have learned a lot and have much more to learn. The programme was good for a short course—dynamic classes balanced between the contents, debate and participation.” – Ricardo Sá Nogueira, previous student

“The course was brilliant, very rich in content and interactive. Catalin has been extremely supportive throughout, provided a lot of resources and offered great analytical depth, which was very suitable to my needs.” – Eleni Pappa, previous course participant

Pricing Information:

£270 (10 WEEKS), 260 (CONCESSIONS – 10 WEEKS), £250 (UCL STUDENTS – 10 WEEKS) // £165 (FIRST 5 WEEKS), £155 (CONCESSIONS – FIRST 5 WEEKS), £145 (UCL STUDENTS – FIRST 5 WEEKS)

This course takes place across 10 Tuesday Evenings (6.30pm to 9pm) starting 23rd January 2024. You can choose to attend the first 5 sessions of the course only (finishing on 20 February 2024) or to attend all 10 sessions until 26th March 2024.

This course will be delivered via online distance learning, and students will require a computer or other internet connected device.

1x Universal Credit bursary place is available for this course. Please see our bursary policy here. You will find out if you were successful in receiving a bursary by 16th January 2024.

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(Image: Still from The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda, France, 2000)