Department of Film Studies

Since we launched in 2004, our department has enjoyed a vibrant research culture.

We have welcomed visiting scholars such as Mette Hjort, Robert Burgoyne (who has joined us as a permanent staff member!) and most recently noted US film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum and film historian Robert Rosenstone. In 2013, renowned French film critic Jean-Michel Frodon will join the department as professorial fellow.

We offer numerous events to enrich the film culture of the community, both town and gown, offering a range of visiting scholars and film makers as well as film screenings. Developing our committment to film culture, we hosted International Film Festival Workshop which brought together scholars and industry professionals and have started to bring  Film Festivals to St Andrews, including the Italian Film Festival, the French Film Festival and the African Film Festival (part of the Africa in Motion Edinburgh African Film Festival).

Meanwhile, we welcome an array of publications, including Professor Robert Burgoyne's The Epic Film, Professor Dina Iordanova's Digital Disruption: Cinema Moves On-line (co-edited with Stuart Cunningham), Dr David Martin-Jones' Scotland: Global Cinema and Deleuze and World Cinemas and Dr Elisabetta Girelli's Beauty and the Beast: Italianness in British Cinema. Joining this growing list is the newly released Moving Color: Early Film, Mass Culture, Modernism by Dr Joshua Yumibe, Dr Leshu Torchin's Creating the Witness: Documenting Genocide on Film, Video, and the Internet as well as Moving People Moving Images, Cinema and Trafficking in the New Europe, co-written by Dr William Brown, Prof Dina Iordanova, and Dr Leshu Torchin. 

Please visit St Andrews Film Books for more information. 

For information on studentships and funding for postgraduate study, click here. 

Film Studies at St Andrews

Film Studies at the University of St. Andrews is the newest department at Scotland's first university. We are dedicated to the study of cinema from a global perspective. Working at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level, we believe students of cinema should engage with a great diversity of practices, movements, genres, and forms.

At St Andrews, we move beyond the canon of Hollywood and European film to examine a wide range of ‘minor’ marginal and transnational cinemas. Alongside the major film movements of Europe, Asia and North America, we study the avant-garde, documentaries, animation, and cult films from around the world.

Staff expertise, a lively research environment of conferences, events, and screenings and plentiful resources (a newly refurbished lecture theatre and screening hall; a growing collection of international films, books, and journals) offer students the chance to study and experience the richness and variety that cinema, in all its forms, offers us as spectators.

** Interested in postgraduate study? Click here for more information on the programme or contact us for further details.

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