This course is offered at Boston University through the Arvind and Chandan Nadlal Kilachand Honors College. It was developed and is taught by Professor Sam Kauffmann of BU’s Department of Film & Television.
We start with the presumption that students enrolling in this course believe in promoting a just and fair society, and wish to learn to use filmmaking skills to expose and address injustices in our Global Village.
We explore the historical and theological foundations that compel people to promote social justice. We then examine potential social issue “topics” that may be of interest to students in the class. For the first assignment, students each choose a social issue and then create a video “Mash-Up”, using clips from sources like YouTube and other websites. For the final project each student researches, writes and produces a short video (five to ten minutes) about a social issue that is important to them. The final video and the Mash-Up seek to change the way people perceive that specific issue and highlight ways in which positive changes can occur.
