91�Թ���

Concept

Are you passionate about cinema and eager to dive deeper into its history? This intensive summer school in Antwerp gives you the chance to explore film history in an inspiring international environment. Over the course of seven days, you will combine screenings, lectures, and seminars while engaging with leading scholars, critics, and fellow students from around the world.

Each edition focuses on two key themes in film history: such as a director, actor, genre, movement, or historical moment, approached from multiple historical and theoretical perspectives. A true highlight of the programme is the chance to view and discuss rare archival films, screened in optimal cinema conditions.

Combining rigorous scholarship with an immersive cinematic experience, this programme offers approximately 20 screenings complemented by 10–15 lectures and interactive seminars. By the end of the week, you’ll have expanded your knowledge, sharpened your critical skills, and built valuable connections within the international film community. While the definitive schedule will be released in May, prospective applicants are encouraged to review the , , and  programmes to consult examples of previous screenings and lecture topics.

This year's programme strands

In 2027, the first programme strand will focus on “Hollywood’s ‘Other’ Stars: Difference and the Business of Stardom in Classical Hollywood Cinema”.

Early on in its history, Hollywood discovered that racial and cultural difference could be extraordinarily profitable — as glamour, exoticism, musical and comedic spectacle — while denying the performers who generated that value the full privileges of stardom: romantic centrality, narrative depth, top billing, or a stable career. The result was a liminal form of stardom: visible enough to be profitable, yet contained enough to never threaten racial hierarchy.

This programme strand examines that paradoxical stardom through the careers of the era's major actresses of colour, including Anna May Wong, Hattie McDaniel, Dolores del Río and many more, while asking how the terms of visibility differed across racialised groups. Which roles, genres and star personas were available to Asian, Black, and Latin actresses, and on what terms? To whom were their images marketed, and how did audiences of colour receive, contest, or repurpose them? The programme also investigates the possibility of genuine authorship both within and beyond Hollywood’s reach, in Latin American, Asian, or European cinema and theatre. Male performers enter the story where they sharpen the research question, clarifying, for instance, how gender influenced the terms on which racial difference could be sold. This year's summer school thus examines how the Hollywood star system turned racial and cultural difference into commercial value while simultaneously policing the boundaries of who could become a star, on what terms, and for which audiences.

The second programme strand will be announced in due time.

ZomerFilmCollege

Organised by the University of Antwerp, in collaboration with  (Flemish Service for Film Culture), and in partnership with ,  and , this summer school runs alongside  (ZomerFilmCollege), with which it partly overlaps.

Those who are interested in the programme but do not wish to enrol in the academic Summer School can also participate in the ZomerFilmCollege, organised in parallel. The ZomerFilmCollege includes all film screenings and lectures that are part of the Summer School programme, but does not include the academic seminar sessions (some are replaced by additional lectures) and the preparatory assignments. Participation in the ZomerFilmCollege does not lead to ECTS credits or a certificate of completion. Its full programme will be announced in May, when registrations will also open.