The cultural diversity of film is a powerful component of its status as a significant art form. Students are expected to reflect this diversity in their contextualizing film work, most importantly, the Comparative.

Culture is defined as learned and shared beliefs, values, interests, attitudes, products and all patterns of behaviour created by society. This view of culture includes an organized system of symbols, ideas, explanations, beliefs and material production that humans create and manipulate in their daily lives. Culture is dynamic and organic, and it operates on many levels across both time (historical) and space (geographical). It is important that culture is seen as fluid and subject to change.  

Cultural context 

For the purposes of the DP film course, cultural context refers to the conditions that influence and are influenced by culture. Cultural context appears in both the taught syllabus and the assessment tasks, and involves consideration of some of the following factors, some of which may be blended (such as socio- economic factors). 

• Economic (for example, the economic classes and issues explored within a film’s narrative) 

• Geographical (for example, the geographical location of a film’s origin) 

• Historical (for example, the period in time in which a film was created) 

• Institutional (for example, the production, distribution and exhibition factors involved for a film) 

• Political (for example, a film that attempts to persuade, subvert or create a political effect) 

• Social (for example, the communities, identities or issues represented in a film) 

• Technological (for example, the tools, products and methods used to create a film) 

Film focus 

For the purposes of the DP film course, film focus has been chosen as an umbrella term for the frameworks that exist to help understand and categorize films in order to identify and explore connections, links and relationships between them. In both the taught syllabus and assessment tasks, areas of film focus include the following. 

• Film movements (such as French New Wave, German expressionism, Third Cinema, and so on) 

• Film genre and film style (such as film noir, romantic comedy, science fiction, Western, and so on) 

• Film theory (such as auteur theory, feminism, Psychoanalytical film theory, and so on) 

Students will explore a variety of film traditions, conventions and areas of film focus in order to formulate clearly defined topics for further study. They should have experience of engaging with multiple film texts from a variety of contrasting cultural contexts.

Students will identify and research links between a variety of film texts, their contrasting cultural contexts and a variety of areas of film focus. Students should be able to develop arguments and perspectives on specific areas of film focus, comparing and contrasting a variety of film texts in order to further their own understandings.  

Students will reflect on their learning in this area, formulating a rationale for the arguments they have developed and comparisons they have made. Students should have experience of presenting work as a recorded multimedia comparative study and consider how best to present audio-visual material.