The course comprises one unit of a four-semester survey (each part of which is free-standing and may be taken separately and independently of each other or in any order) of the major achievements of the most important artistic movement of the last sixty years in American film--the independent feature filmmaking movement, in which American narrative filmmakers broke away from the financial, bureaucratic, and (most importantly) imaginative influence of Hollywood values and entertainment story-telling methods to create a series of low-tech, low-budget, personal-expression films. This semester will focus on the contemporary generation that has been referred to by reviewers as "mumblecore" filmmakers. The past fifteen years have seen the birth and development of a new kind of ultra-low-budget DIY filmmaking created by filmmakers in their 20s and 30s who write, shoot, edit, and often act in their own movies. The result is a series of works that have their finger on the pulse of contemporary sexual and social mores and communicate what it is to be young, restless, eager, and uncertain in the world as we actually experience it today. Since women have made some of the best and most important of these films, screenings will include many female filmmakers. No pre-requisites and no permission required.

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