Film and Photographic Studies

Degree: Master of Arts in Film and Photographic Studies
Mode of Study: Full-time
Duration: 1 year
Start date: September, February
Language of instruction: English
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The Master’s Programme in Film and Photographic Studies offers you a unique programme, focusing on a challenging academic study in the field of ‘lens-based’ media, comprising photography, film and video.

The curriculum is a combination of history and theory of film and photography within the broad context of visual and other media. The programme will focus on these three media as well as on the basis of the discourse on their specific nature and their relation to one another.

Graduates of this master’s programme are qualified for positions as film and photographic historian, museum curator, critic, manager of a photographic agency or exhibition producer.

The information about this programme is available in the following languages:

Film and Photography are currently the focus of considerable interest. The Amsterdam Film museum, in its more than sixty-year existence, has built up a reputation for appealing and daring programming.

Photography museums have been established in Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam, and articles on photography regularly appear in the art pages of leading newspapers. Art museums and university libraries are paying more attention to their own photo collections. The Leiden University library houses one of our country’s oldest and most complete photo collections.

As a result of this increasing interest, there is a growing need for well-trained individuals with specialist knowledge of this field. These individuals are professionals who can approach and analyse film and photography both as independent media and in relation to other disciplines and media. The Master’s in Film and Photographic Studies at Leiden University is the only programme that focuses so specifically on film and photography while maintaining an interdisciplinary approach, as well as providing academic (intellectual) skills.

Areas of attention

The Master’s in Film and Photographic Studies aims to provide you with a broad academic and social orientation on film and photography as well as insight into photographic practice as research. Particular areas of attention include:

  • the interdisciplinary methods in the academic study of film and photography;
  • theories of film, photography and video;
  • the significance of film and photography as a means of communication and a mass medium with specific underlying strategies;
  • the interconnections among film, photography, video, visual culture and other forms of visual art;
  • the forms of presentation for film and photography (exhibitions, internet, publications, reviews, etc.);
  • film and photographic practice as research;
  • strategies in the field of collecting, conservation and management.

As a result of the increasing interest in film and photography and the growing role played by film and photography in society, the environments (‘photography worlds’ and ‘film worlds’) in which film and photography can be investigated are constantly increasing. Recent developments such as digital photography and new media are also dealt with in the programme.

Prof. Meiselas

“It is characteristic of my life’s work that I place myself where I don’t actually belong: I am there, yet I am also not there.”

“The digital age will fundamentally change press photography and raise questions about authorship and the authenticity of sources. Today almost everyone has a digital camera or cell phone, and citizen journalism will progressively become a dominant source for news.

Photography is about daring to look at things. It is characteristic of my life’s work that I place myself where I don’t actually belong: I am there, yet I am also not there. I approach my subject not only as a documentary photographer, but also as an historian and ethnographer.

In the book Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History I reconstructed the visual history of the Kurds by collecting photographs and written materials from multiple perspectives, weaving together accounts from missionaries, colonial administrators, anthropologists and journalists.

In 2001 I produced the book Encounters with the Dani, with a similar approach, focusing on the transformation of the Dani people of West Papua through photographic documentation of their exposure to the West. In this last project, I did extensive research in personal archives and museums, collecting and interviewing throughout the Netherlands.”