Outline

Overview

From the nostalgia film to the Holocaust documentary, cinema is implicated in complex processes of forgetting and remembering. This unit introduces students to thinking about how film represents memory formally and narratively, and its thematic, cultural and ethical implications. It traces film's relation to nostalgia and history, while approaching cinema more broadly as an archive of memory, especially of those ephemeral or affective experiences not often thought of as historical.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Film Studies
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	12 credit points at 1000 level in Film Studies
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	ARHT2053 or ARHT2653
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Matilda Mroz, matilda.mroz@sydney.edu.au

Assessment

The census date for this unit availability is 1 September 2025

Details
Criteria

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length	Use of AI
Written work	Critical writing task Essay on a topic from the unit using theory and film analysis	35%	Formal exam period Due date: 21 Nov 2025 at 23:59	2000 words (equivalent)	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
In-person practical, skills, or performance task or test	Tutorial leadership task Leading discussion and in-class activities in one tutorial during semester + 500 word submitted report	15%	Multiple weeks	2 hours and 500 words	AI prohibited
Outcomes assessed:
Out-of-class quiz	Early feedback task Short online quiz #earlyfeedbacktask	0%	Week 03 Due date: 22 Aug 2025 at 23:59	n/a	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
In-person written or creative task	In-class writing task Written responses to in-class questions and prompts	25%	Week 06	1 hour (equivalent to 1000 words)	AI prohibited
Outcomes assessed:
In-person written or creative task	In-class writing task Written responses to in-class questions and prompts	25%	Week 12	1 hour (1000 words equivalent)	AI prohibited
Outcomes assessed:
= hurdle task ? = early feedback task ?

Early feedback task

This unit includes an early feedback task, designed to give you feedback prior to the census date for this unit. Details are provided in the Canvas site and your result will be recorded in your Marks page. It is important that you actively engage with this task so that the University can support you to be successful in this unit.

Assessment summary

Tutorial Leadership Task

At the beginning of semester, each student will be allocated to one tutorial where they will be expected to lead discussion, lead any in-class activity such as film analysis exercises, and answer questions based on the required and recommended reading/viewing and lecture material for that week. Students must ensure that they are thoroughly prepared for the tutorial that they are allocated to lead. Students must submit a short (max. 500 words) document within the week following their Tutorial Leadership class, outlining the direction of class discussion and a summary of their leadership activities.

See Canvas for the specific marking criteria for this assessment.

Film Analysis Feedback Task

Students will write a structured analysis of a film sequence, focusing on film techniques and aesthetics. This is an Early Feedback Task.

See Canvas for the specific marking criteria for this assessment.

In-class Writing Tasks

There will be two In-class Writing Tasks during semester. Each is worth 25%, and each will take students approximately 1 hour to complete. Students will be provided with writing materials; no laptops or phones will be permitted. The Tasks are designed to assess students’ ability to engage in moving-image analysis and to make connections between films and texts across the unit as a whole. They require close engagement with the viewing and reading material for the unit. Students will be given time during classes to practice elements of the In-class Writing Tasks in the first few weeks of semester, which will allow students to practice their analytical skills each week and become familiar with the Task format and expectations.

See Canvas for the specific marking criteria for this assessment.

Critical Writing Task

Students are asked to select two films on the unit’s required or recommended viewing list, and discuss them in relation to one quotation from a unit reading, chosen from a list set by the unit co-ordinator (the list will appear on Canvas towards the end of semester). The Critical Writing piece should formulate an overarching argument, and be creative and original. Students are expected to reflect on the chosen quotation via a close focus on unit texts and films. Students can in addition conduct their own research, using academic sources (books, book chapters, journal articles). Students will use 2 screenshots from their chosen film to accompany a close formal analysis, and are expected to draw on, reflect on, and critically discuss the details from appropriate unit readings.

Each student must also submit a max. 200-word statement on how AI has been used in this assessment. Students are not permitted to use AI as a substitute for their own writing. Students may use AI to refine, for example, the topic, outline or structure for the essay. The statement should include the prompts used, an indication of what material the AI generated, and how/why the essay developed, adapted, or rejected this material.

See Canvas for the specific marking criteria for this assessment.

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy, Schedule 1.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100	Work of an exceptional standard
Distinction	75 - 84	Work of a very high standard
Credit	65 - 74	Work of a good standard
Pass	50 - 64	Work of an acceptable standard
Fail	0 - 49	Work that does not meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard

For more information see sydney.edu.au/students/guide-to-grades

For more information see guide to grades.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

You can use generative AI tools for open assessments. Restrictions on AI use apply to secure, supervised assessments used to confirm if students have met specific learning outcomes.

Refer to the assessment table above to see if AI is allowed, for assessments in this unit and check Canvas for full instructions on assessment tasks and AI use.

If you use AI, you must always acknowledge it. Misusing AI may lead to a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy.

Visit the Current Students website for more information on AI in assessments, including details on how to acknowledge its use.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

Academic integrity

The University expects students to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

Our website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. This includes advice on how to avoid common breaches of academic integrity. Ensure that you have completed the Academic Honesty Education Module (AHEM) which is mandatory for all commencing coursework students

Penalties for serious breaches can significantly impact your studies and your career after graduation. It is important that you speak with your unit coordinator if you need help with completing assessments.

Visit the Current Students website for more information on AI in assessments, including details on how to acknowledge its use.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Support for students

The Support for Students Policy reflects the University’s commitment to supporting students in their academic journey and making the University safe for students. It is important that you read and understand this policy so that you are familiar with the range of support services available to you and understand how to engage with them.

The University uses email as its primary source of communication with students who need support under the Support for Students Policy. Make sure you check your University email regularly and respond to any communications received from the University.

Learning resources and detailed information about weekly assessment and learning activities can be accessed via Canvas. It is essential that you visit your unit of study Canvas site to ensure you are up to date with all of your tasks.

If you are having difficulties completing your studies, or are feeling unsure about your progress, we are here to help. You can access the support services offered by the University at any time:

Support and Services (including health and wellbeing services, financial support and learning support)
Course planning and administration
Meet with an Academic Adviser

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Film and/as Memory: An Introduction, with Inside Out	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 02	Film and/as Memory: An Introduction, with Inside Out	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 02	The Remembered Film I: Colonial Landscapes and Picnic at Hanging Rock	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 03	The Remembered Film I: Colonial Landscapes and Picnic at Hanging Rock	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 03	The Remembered Film II: Migrating Sense Memory, Daughters of the Dust and Lemonade	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 04	The Remembered Film II: Migrating Sense Memory, Daughters of the Dust and Lemonade	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 04	Nostalgia, Liminality and the Cliché: The Virgin Suicides	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 05	Nostalgia, Liminality and the Cliché: The Virgin Suicides	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 05	Trauma and Flashbacks: Hiroshima mon Amour	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 06	Trauma and Flashbacks: Hiroshima mon Amour	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 06	Why do the Dead Return?: Atlantics	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 07	Why do the Dead Return?: Atlantics	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 07	Home Movies and Hauntology: Aftersun	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 08	Home Movies and Hauntology: Aftersun	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 08	Signs and Omens: Throne of Blood	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 09	Signs and Omens: Throne of Blood	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 09	The Haunted House and the Birth of a Nation: The Shining	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 10	The Haunted House and the Birth of a Nation: The Shining	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 10	Repressed Memory and the Monstrous: The Babadook	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 11	Repressed Memory and the Monstrous: The Babadook	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 11	Preparing for the final In-class Writing Task	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 12	Unit overview and final in-class writing task	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 12	Preparing for the Critical Writing Task	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 13	Student consultations	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 13	Student consultations	Tutorial (2 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance

According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold. If a unit of study has a participation mark, your attendance may influence this mark. For more information on attendance, see https://sydney.edu.au/handbooks/arts/rules/faculty_resolutions_arts.shtml.

Class Requirements

All lectures for this unit will be in-person. They will be made available as recordings only for students who have timetable clashes. All tutorials will be conducted in-person. Engaging with the required viewing/reading and lecture material, and participating in class discussion, is a mandatory minimum requirement for all students in tutorials.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Topic 1. Film and/as Memory: An Introduction, with Inside Out

Required Viewing: Inside Out (Pete Docter, USA, 2015)

Required Reading: Radstone, Susannah. “Cinema and memory”. In Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, ed. by S. Radstone and B. Schwarz. Fordham University Press, 2010.

Topic 2. The Remembered Film I: Colonial Landscapes and Picnic at Hanging Rock

Required Viewing: Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, Australia, 1975)

Required Reading: Burgin, Victor. The Remembered Film. Reaktion, 2004. [extracts]

Backman Rogers, Anna. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Bloomsbury, 2022. [extracts]

Topic 3. The Remembered Film II: Migrating Sense Memory, Daughters of the Dust and Lemonade

Required Viewing: Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, USA, 1991).

Lemonade (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, USA, 2016).

Required Reading: Rogers, Jamie Ann. “Diasporic Communion and Textual Exchange in Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust.” Black Camera, 11 (2), 2020.

Marks, Laura. The Skin of the Film. Duke University Press, 2000. [extracts]

Topic 4. Nostalgia, Liminality and the Cliché: The Virgin Suicides

Required Viewing: The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, USA, 1999)

Required Reading: Backman Rogers, Anna. Sofia Coppola: The Politics of Visual Pleasure. Berghahn, 2018. [extracts]

Backman Rogers, Anna. American Independent Cinema: Rites of Passage and the Crisis Image. Edinburgh University Press, 2015. [extracts]

Topic 5. Trauma and Flashbacks: Hiroshima mon Amour

Required Viewing: Hiroshima mon Amour (Alain Resnais, France, 1959).

Required Reading: Turim, Maureen. “Definition and Theory of the Flashback.” In Flashbacks in Film: Memory and History. Routledge, 1989.

Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, History. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. [extracts]

Topic 6. Why do the Dead Return? Atlantics

Required Viewing: Atlantics (Mati Diop, France/Senegal/Belgium, 2019).

Required Reading: Davis, Colin, Haunted Subjects: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis and the Return of the Dead. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. [extracts]

Gordon, Avery. “Introduction” in Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. University of Minnesota Press, 2008. [extracts]

Topic 7. Home Movies and Hauntology: Aftersun

Required Viewing: Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, UK, 2022)

Required Reading: van Dijck, José. “Future Memories: The Construction of Cinematic Hindsight”, Theory, Culture & Society, 25 (3), 2007, 71-87.

Fisher, Mark. "What is Hauntology?", Film Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Fall 2012), pp. 16-24

Topic 8. Signs and Omens: Throne of Blood

Required Viewing: Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1957)

Required Reading: Ryle, Simon. “Moles, spots, stains and tincts: marks of futurity in Shakespeare and Kurosawa.” Textual Practice, 28 (5), 2014.

Topic 9. The Haunted House and the Birth of a Nation: The Shining

Required Viewing: The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, UK/USA, 1980)

Required Reading: Konzett, Delia Malia. “Kubrick’s Red Room: Architecture, Race and Nationhood in The Shining.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 41 (2), 2024.

Trigg, Dylan. “Archaeologies of Hauntings: Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis”. In The Shining: Studies in the Horror Film, ed. D. Olson. Centipede Press, 2015.

Topic 10. Repressed Memory and the Monstrous: The Babadook

Required Viewing: The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, Australia, 2014).

Required Reading: Paul Mitchell, “The Horror of Loss: Reading Jennifer Kent's The Babadook as a Trauma Narrative.” Atlantis English Studies, 41 (2), 2019.

Shelley Buerger, 'The beak that grips: maternal indifference, ambivalence and the abject in The Babadook', Studies in Australasian Cinema 11, 1. 2017.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. demonstrate an advanced understanding of different concepts of memory and haunting, and their application to the study of film in terms of representation, spectatorship, and reception;
LO2. analyse the representation of memory and spectrality across a range of genres and national cinemas;
LO3. critically reflect on the relation of cinema to various forms of memory, processes of memorialization, historical discourse, theories of haunting, and theorisations of the archive;
LO4. draw on the concepts and issues explored in the unit, as well as further independent research, to construct arguments and perspectives on cinema, the spectral, memory, and history.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

The assessments been revised since the unit was last offered.

Additional information

Additional costs

Students may be required to rent or purchase films for this unit. This is due to copyright restrictions.

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Early feedback task

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Additional costs

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

FILM2001: Haunted Screens: Film and Memory

Semester 2, 2025 [Normal day] - Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Early feedback task

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Additional costs

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links