AWE Club – A Level Film Studies
A Level Film Studies
Starts September 2025
The A Level Film Studies class will follow the Eduqas specification. It will be on every Wednesday from 11.30 to 1.30 and will be led by a very experienced teacher of Film Studies at both A-Level and GCSE. He has worked with home educated young people for over twenty years.
This A Level allows students to develop their academic skills through the study of film, engaging with the theory of film and critical debates about film form. Students will explore the aesthetic and ideology of films – how can films make a difference and shape society. A discussion of narrative form and the positioning of the viewer in film will help students to appreciate the work of filmmakers and prepare for their own practical work. We will of course also consider film form – the tools of the filmmaker – and how these create meaning and how films are shaped by the contexts of the time in which they are made. Those students who have studied GCSE Film Studies will recognise many of these elements but of course they will be considered in greater depth on the A Level course. Students are given an opportunity to not only demonstrate their knowledge in exam answers but also in creating their own piece of art.
The course has two exams and one piece of coursework (which is worth 30% of the final mark). For the first exam students will study films from the Classical Hollywood Period (1930-1960) and the New Hollywood period (1961-1990). In addition, students will study America films since 2012 both mainstream and independent. The final section involves a study of British contemporary cinema since 1995 with a wonderful selection of films to choose from.
The second exam has a fascinating combination of different film forms to study for. We will look at modern European cinema and a modern film from outside Europe (from Chinese, Iranian, South Korean or South American cinema). We will also study documentary cinema in the twenty-first century and silent cinema from the 1920s. The final section of this exam will involve experimental film from the second half of the twentieth century.
Student’s coursework will either be in the form of a short film between 4 and 5 minutes long or s screenplay for the same length of film. This will be accompanied by an evaluative analyses of the coursework.
All students will need to have a copy of the course book which is at the link below (on Amazon) –