A Level: Film Studies

Film Studies is an academic A-Level, built around critical analysis and evaluation of a wide range of film texts. By studying film, you will develop your critical thinking and enrich your understanding of how cinema mirrors people, places and ideas. You will learn how films are bound to their social, cultural and historical contexts and how filmmakers from a range of backgrounds represent these features through engaging and inspiring artistic choices.

In Year 12 you will study ground-breaking films from Classical and New Hollywood, contemporary mainstream and independent American cinema, and the challenging and socially conscious nature of British Film.

In Year 13 you will study examples of Spanish language and Iranian cinema, documentary film, silent cinema from the Soviet era, and the experimental work of Quentin Tarantino. You will also complete a screen-writing project as a Non-Examined Assessment.

Examined film texts:

• Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
• Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut (Ridley Scott, 1982)
• La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)
• Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
• This is England (Shane Meadows, 2006)
• Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
• Taxi Tehran (Jafar Panahi, 2015)
• Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015)
• Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
• Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)

Two x 2.5 hour exams (70% of final grade) Screenplay & Evaluation NEA (30% of final grade)

• All Loughborough College Sixth Form courses have minimum entry requirements of at least five GCSEs at grade C/4 or above, including English Language and Maths.

• GCSE English Language or English Literature at grade 5.

Film Studies is a suitable platform for progression to a range of Higher Education degree and vocational level courses. For those who do not wish to progress further within the field of Film Studies, this course also provides a coherent, engaging and culturally valuable course of study.

The skills developed on the course will also help further study in English literature and other analytical centred subjects. It also develops skills that can enable direct progression into employment.