Film & Television Studies: Post-Wall German Cinema

Investigations of nation and identity in film and/or television approached in their specific cultural, historical, and theoretical terms. May be repeated for credit. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years. Prerequisites: FTS 1300, FTS 1320, FTS 1400, FTS 1420, or FTS 1430.

Prereqs enforced by the system: FTS 1400, 1420, or 1430 PACE students with permission and override

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it didn’t just reunite a country—it changed the language of its cinema. In the decades that followed, filmmakers began asking questions like: What does it mean to be German in a globalized world? How can you look forward while still reckoning with the past? And how can cinema capture life in a post-Wall society shaped by the promises and failures of neoliberalism—where freedom collides with precarity, and progress often comes at a human cost? From the kinetic rush of Lola rennt to the suffocating surveillance of The Lives of Others, post-Wall cinema traces Germany’s evolving sense of self. Films like Barbara and Undine turn quiet resistance into visual poetry, while Ich bin dein Mensch transforms questions of AI and intimacy into a meditation on what it means to be human. In Berlin Alexanderplatz, the struggle for survival and belonging spills beyond national borders, reframing migration and modernity for a new century. Together, these films reveal a nation both haunted by its past and hungry for new ways of imagining its future. In this course, we’ll explore how filmmakers and series creators since 1990 have reinvented what “German film” can be in a Europe without walls—but full of new boundaries. From the privatization of the 1990s film industry to today’s streaming revolution, we’ll examine how shifting technologies, audiences, and transnational collaborations continue to reshape German cinema’s aesthetics, circulation, and global reach. Through this course, students will: • Gain a deeper understanding of key movements and turning points in German cinema from 1990 to the present. • Analyze how filmmakers grapple with questions of memory, identity, and belonging in a post-reunification and post-neoliberal world. • Interpret film as a space of cultural memory, political critique, and aesthetic experimentation. • Develop critical viewing skills through close analysis of cinematography, editing, sound, and performance. • Examine how streaming platforms and transnational co-productions are transforming the meanings and boundaries of “German cinema” today.

As an upper-level seminar, students are expected to attend class regularly, coming to each session well-prepared to discuss the films and secondary readings and having completed assignments in a timely fashion. Students can expect to spend to spend 6 – 8 hours a week outside of class. All reading materials will be provided by the instructor and most films will be available for students to screen at home for free through the library’s online collection.

Your final grade will be based on the following components: 1. Active participation in seminar discussions – consistent engagement with readings, films, and peers. 2. Weekly response posts – brief written, visual, or oral reflections that connect course concepts to the assigned film(s) and series. 3. Two in-class tests (open note) – designed to assess your understanding of key historical, cultural, and cinematic frameworks. 4. A final group project that synthesizes and/or builds upon key course themes and concerns