Cambridge Film and Screen
Cambridge Film and Screen is the home of research and teaching in film and screen studies at the University of Cambridge.
We host vibrant MPhil and PhD programmes, as well as an annual calendar of research events and residencies. Our mission is to combine Cambridge’s tradition of rigorous intellectual inquiry and its history of innovative interdisciplinary methods with a focus on the theory and history of moving image media.
The University of Cambridge has fostered teaching and research on the subject of film since the 1970s, but lectures on film topics in various faculties were delivered to undergraduates at least as far back as the 1960s. Stephen Heath and Colin MacCabe undertook pioneering work in film studies at Cambridge in the 70s and early 80s, including a seminar on British television taught by Heath, MacCabe and Raymond Williams in 1980. Film rose in prominence as a subject of undergraduate and postgraduate study and as the object of academic research in several departments and faculties across the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.These strengths and initiatives were synergised with the launch of an MPhil degree in 2007 and a PhD degree in 2016.
As a place to study film and screen media, Cambridge’s distinction is felt in its dedication to thinking carefully about the art of the moving image in an interdisciplinary intellectual environment. This comparative intellectual ambience enables our students to pursue work of both great rigour and startling originality. The publications of our teaching and research faculty bear witness to the richness of our research culture in film and screen studies.