About the Programme
The International Master in Cinema Studies (IMACS) is a research-oriented, four-semester postgraduate course with an interdisciplinary emphasis, organized by a network of fourteen universities in France, Italy, Germany, England, Spain, Belgium, Canada, Brazil and the Netherlands.
Beyond language and cultural boundaries, the IMACS programme opens up new perspectives in cultural media research, in which the exploration of the core medium of film becomes the key to understanding our increasingly digitised media culture. The universities in the network are among the leading institutions in film studies and offer students the opportunity to acquire insights into the significant research approaches of the discipline.
The international Master‘s degree qualifies its graduates for challenging conceptual tasks in the field of cultural and media production and enables them to pursue a PhD. In the course of their research work, the graduates learn to scientifically analyse the aesthetic, historical, social and economic dimensions of contemporary media culture. The programme, which is attended at the home university and two partner universities of choice, also requires and promotes both linguistic and intercultural skills in order to successfully orient oneself in various scholarly systems.
The IMACS programme is open to five to eight students per university each year, selected on the basis of a research project and their language skills. The selected students are expected to attend their classes in three different universities belonging to the network, their home university and two other institutions abroad. The languages of instruction include English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese. Please consult the pages of the institutions in the network for more information on required language skills.
Programme Structure
Designed as a two-year programme, the IMACS comprises a workload of 120 ECTS over the course of four semesters. It encompasses 16 specific teaching modules, organized as follows: ten modules during the first year (five courses per semester during the first year) and six modules during the second year (three courses per semester during the second year). According to their possibilities, each partner offers one or more classes per module, which may vary from one year to the other. The classes offered in the frame of the 16 IMACS modules are therefore of variable number and are managed by each university mirroring its own teaching programme. This ensures a good variety in terms of areas covered, allows the diverse expertise of the partner universities to significantly come through, and guarantees an up to date curriculum.
During the first semester of the first year students are expected to take five classes (corresponding to five modules), in order to acquire 25 ECTS. The second semester is to be spent abroad at one of the partner universities, where students are once again expected to take five classes (similarly, they correspond to five modules and to 25 ECTS). Whenever needed, students can take a language class both at their home university and at the university where they will be spending the semester. The first year also comprises a first in-depth research paper that may be associated to a research methodology class and that may represent a preparatory work for the final dissertation.
The second year is mainly devoted to the research project that will be presented as final dissertation. Students are expected to spend the first semester abroad and to take three classes (15 ECTS); this mobility must take place in a different university from the one of the previous semester. The second semester is to be spent at the home university, where students are once again expected to take three classes (15 ECTS). The dissertation defence is to be held at the home university, but co-supervisions across IMACS universities are encouraged.
Organization
To facilitate the organization of each student's individual track in the IMACS programme, there is an IMACS coordinator at each institution in the network. The coordinators are the contact persons for prospective students and both local and incoming students at each department. Please check the university pages for detailed contact information.
Please Note
The programme does not include practical labs, or professionalising classes as part of the basic IMACS structure, and it does not include the possibility to pursue an internship while abroad. Nevertheless, students are free to take such classes if offered by the universities they are studying at, or as supplementary modules to be included as extra-curricular activities in their academic record.
Fees are subject to the home university policies and to the laws and regulations of the institutions selected as host universities for the first and second period abroad.
Due to academic policies, enrolment for incoming students within the network is limited at the following universities: Birkbeck College London, Universidad Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Université de Montréal, Università degli Studi Roma 3. Candidates are also asked to consider that the Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora and the Universiteit van Amsterdam are able to host incoming IMACS students only during their second mobility abroad (first semester of the second year).