Film and German

Film and German is a combination that invites you to explore two rich cultural and intellectual worlds simultaneously, and to discover the many ways in which they intersect. Film studies gives you the critical tools to analyse cinema as an art form, an industry, and a medium that reflects and shapes how societies understand themselves. German as a degree brings you into contact with one of Europe's most significant literary, philosophical, and cultural traditions, from Goethe and Schiller through Kafka and Brecht to contemporary German-language writers and filmmakers.

The German-language film tradition is among the most important and studied in the world, making the two subjects particularly well matched.

At Queen Mary University of London, this four-year full-time programme develops your German to an advanced level through sustained language study and engagement with a wide range of texts, cultural material, and contemporary society. In film studies, you will examine cinema theory, film history, genre, and the visual and narrative conventions through which films generate meaning. The intersection of the two disciplines opens up the study of German cinema specifically, from the Expressionist films of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi period to postwar East and West German cinema, the New German Cinema of Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders, and the vibrant contemporary German, Austrian, and Swiss film production of recent decades.

Graduates from film and German programmes go on to careers in media and film organisations, arts administration, journalism, publishing, education, the civil service, and international business. German language proficiency at a high level is valued across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and in European and international organisations. The critical thinking and cultural literacy developed through film studies are widely applicable.

Further study at postgraduate level in film, German studies, or European cinema is a common pathway.