Discover how melodrama shaped global cinema
Beschrijving
This Summer School offers an intensive programme built around two carefully selected themes in film history, combining around twenty rare archival screenings in optimal cinema conditions with expert-led lectures and in-depth seminars. In 2026 the primary focus will be on ‘Global Melodrama’, examining how this emotionally charged mode shaped cinema around the world. Alongside close film analysis and scholarly discussion, participants are encouraged to connect theoretical debates with historical contexts. A second theme will be announced in due course.
Programma
This intensive summer school offers participants a unique opportunity to deepen their knowledge of film history through a combination of screenings, lectures, seminars, and screenings. Over the course of seven days, you will engage with international scholars, critics and fellow students, exploring two themes in film history (e.g., a director, actor, genre, film movement, a specific moment or current in film history) from multiple historical and theoretical perspectives. A key feature of the programme is the presentation and discussion of rare archival copies of films, screened in optimal cinema conditions.
In addition to attending around 20 screenings, participants will take part in 10-15 lectures and interactive seminars.
By the end of the programme, participants will have acquired in-depth knowledge of the two central themes, developed advanced skills in film analysis, and gained valuable experience in articulating and debating complex ideas in an international academic environment.
In 2026 the primary focus will be on ‘Global Melodrama’. From its earliest days, cinema has drawn on melodrama’s ability to heighten conflict, emotion, and suspense. Silent films relied on its gestures to tell stories without words, while the emergence of the feature film built on its patterns of crisis and resolution. Rather than a fixed genre, melodrama is a flexible mode that has travelled widely. Hollywood used it to shape popular genres, but it has also taken root in diverse contexts across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where filmmakers adapted it to local histories and audiences. This global circulation underscores melodrama’s capacity to dramatize social transformations and to make political tensions deeply felt on an emotional level. For over a century, it has generated some of cinema’s most influential and enduring works.
This summer school is organized by the University of Antwerp in collaboration with Cinea (Flemish Service for Film Culture) and in partnership with De Cinema and CINEMATEK
Opmerkingen
6 ECTS credits will be awarded upon successful completion of the programme according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). Credits will be awarded by the preparatory track, 100% (active) participation during the course and group work and submission of an individual paper after the course. Students of the University of Antwerp who wish to include the ECTS credits earned during an Antwerp Summer or Winter University programme as part of their study programme must register via Mobility Online and SisA.
All certificates of completion are issued as a micro-credential.
