Time Schedule:
Charlotte Cote
AIS 465
Seattle Campus
Examines First Nations video production in Canada; how film is utilized as a medium for addressing issues significant to First Nations. First Nations filmmakers "decolonize" the screen by providing real and positive images of First Nations people that correspond to their cultural and social experiences. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 422.
Class description
This course examines the art of film and video production by First Nations filmmakers in Canada. We will explore how these filmmakers utilize film as a medium for addressing issues significant to First Nations peoples and their respective communities. To understand the importance of these films we will position our analysis within a larger global context to understand how non-Native media representations, literature, and popular culture, supported and perpetuated colonialism, and stereotyped Native peoples in false and negative ways.
We will than explore how Native filmmakers in Canada have re-appropriated these inaccurate images by providing positive and “real” aboriginal images that correspond and relate to their own cultural and social experiences.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
This course is in a lecture/seminar format. Participation is a fundamental aspect of this course and sudents must be prepared to actively participate in class discussions on the films screened in class and on the assigned readings.
Recommended preparation
This course is open to all students at all levels.
Class assignments and grading
The course assignments are a take-home midterm exam, two film analysis papers and a final take-home exam.
* your assignments will be graded on content, presentation, organization and your use of sources.
