Malic Amalya is an Assistant Professor of Experimental Media and 16mm Film Production at Emerson College. His film production and history courses integrate formal analysis, critical theory, art history, current events, and issues of social justice. He is committed to fostering a supportive learning environment and teaching outside of the historical canon by showcasing works by historically excluded filmmakers, including people of color, women, and queer people.

From 2014 - 2020, Malic taught at the California College of the Arts (CCA) where he was an Adjunct II Professor. He also taught in the Cinema Department at the City College of San Francisco (CCSF) and in the Continuing Education Program at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), and has facilitated 16mm camera-less filmmaking workshops in California and Washington State.

ORIGINAL COURSES DESIGNED & TAUGHT BY PROFESSOR AMALYA

• Accessible Cinema

Visual & Media Arts — Emerson College

Audio description enables blind and low-vision moviegoers to hear descriptions of film images and actions, while captioning provides on-screen text descriptions of dialogue and sound design for non-auditory viewers. In the first assignment, students develop closed captioning and audio descriptions for a short film by a professional filmmaker. For the final project, students make an original film that embeds open captions and audio description directly into their film and incorporates accessibility into their concept.

Assignments ask students to consider how captions and audio description can determine the structure of a film, how audio and visuals can mimic each other, and how the other senses – touch, smell, and taste – could be incorporated into time-based art. Readings, guest artist lectures, and film screenings are from the vibrant, intersectional discourses of disability justice and crip theory.

• Experimental Video Interventions

Visual & Media Arts — Emerson College

Video art emerged in the mid-1960s when Korean-American artist, Nam June Paik, took video technology out of the hands of corporations and into the galleries with his television sculptures. This course follows the work of artists and activists, like Paik, who undermine corporate representations and appropriate broadcast equipment. Throughout the semester, students will twist television technology, subvert streaming services, experiment with unconventional cameras, and incorporate performance and sculpture to create unexpected viewing experiences. Unbound by commercial conventions, students are invited to create abstract images, self-reflexive reflections, nonlinear structures, and seething critiques of mass media.

• Civil Disobedience & Artistic Unrest

  Interdisciplinary Studio, Upper Division — California College of the Arts

  This course examines the similarities and differences between civil disobedience and politically-engaged art. Students create an installation and a performance piece on issues of social justice and then use documentary footage of these projects to make two experimental videos. Class topics include environmental activism & Indigenous resistance; the prison industrial complex & the formation of Black Lives Matter; access to health care and the strategies of ACT UP; feminist responses to sexual violence and anti-racist calls for open borders.

• Gender Rules & Regulations

  Critical Studies Department — California College of the Arts

  How do legal and healthcare systems promote categories of gender? How do these categories influence gender roles? How do transgender, nonbinary, two-spirit, and queer people resist heteronormative gender conformity?

  This course explores the history of US laws, psychiatric treatment, and other rules and regulations limiting gender identity and expression, while tracking queer and trans resistance. Weekly readings draw from historical documents, theoretical analyses, psychological articles, cultural criticism, and autobiographical accounts. Students write a term paper based on original research.

• Hand-Held Half-Truths: The Home & the Home Movie

  Intro to Experimental Filmmaking — Continuing Education, San Francisco Art Institute

  This course uses the home movie as a point of departure in exploring the construction of home and identity. Investigations focus on how families want to view themselves based on what kinds of images they take, as well as what kinds of events are left undocumented and how this undercurrent also shapes how families understand themselves. In the tradition of video art, students make their own experimental home movies that illuminate gaps between the spoken and unspoken, explicit and tacit, felt and remembered, conscious and unconscious.

• Lucid Dreams, Illicit Hallucinations

  Intermediate to Advanced Experimental Filmmaking — Continuing Education, San Francisco Art Institute

  Cinematic Illusions & Hypnosis, Fantasy & Phantoms, Side Shows & Psychosis, Role Play & Consent, Tricks, Treats, & Magical Feats!

  Delving deep into the subconscious, students write, film, and edit a short movie using dream-logic and surrealist techniques. Classes alternate between lectures on experimental cinematic techniques, work-shopping student films, and time to edit. Readings include essays on the topics of psychoanalysis and dream analysis; ableism, racism, and cultural appropriation in carnivals and Halloween costumes; kink & consent; psychedelics and pharmaceuticals; and the correlation of trauma and addiction. Each class period will also include screenings from SFAI’s extensive 16mm film collection, including work by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Luis Bunuel, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dali, Maya Deren, Marcel Duchamp, Hollis Frampton, George Kuchar, George Melies, Gunvor Nelson, & Man Ray. Students are required to keep a dream journal.

• Camera-less 16mm Filmmaking

  Workshop — San Francisco Queer Arts Festival: San Francisco, CA

  Workshop — Gender Jam Skill Share: Olympia, WA

  Workshop — DIY or Die Trying: San Jose, CA

  Made up of small individual pictures and projected at 24 frames per second, 16mm film is perfect for manipulation.  In this workshop we will scratch, bleach, collage, and draw directly onto film stock, making a film without the use of a camera.  The workshop includes demonstrations on how to alter found footage, animate frame by frame, and collage without clogging the projector, plus ample time to work and experiment.  At the end of the session, individual sections are spliced together to make a completed film.

COURSES TAUGHT BY PROFESSOR AMALYA

• Experimental Media

  MFA Program, Visual & Media Arts — Emerson College

  This course examines the history and theory of experimental and avant-garde film, video, and other moving image practices. Through extensive research, students curate a film program based on a theme of their choice and write a companion curatorial statement. This statement is part film history and part film criticism; it must analyze cinematic form, production methods, distribution networks, connections to social movements, and broader relationships to art history and the art world.

• Foundations of Image & Sound

  MFA Program, Visual & Media Arts — Emerson College

  Foundations of Image and Sound introduces graduate students to the technical production and artistic practice of creating images and sounds for moving image art. Students will gain practical skills in using video and audio recording equipment and editing software, while developing their unique artistic approach to cinematography, mise-en-scene, sound design, and editing. Particular attention focuses on how image and sound—including audio description and closed captions—react and impact audience attention, interpretation, and emotional reaction.

• Experimental Analog Film

Visual & Media Arts — Emerson College

In this intermediate-level 16mm production course, students create experimental films using nonlinear film structures and a variety of unorthodox, non-computer driven methods. Students will film with the Bolex camera, hand-process in the darkroom, and edit on the Steenbecks. In addition, students work with camera-less methods, including direct animation, cyanotypes, and contact printing. Film screenings, guest artists, readings, lectures, and class discussion will focus on the histories, practices, and politics of avant-garde and underground film art. The primary emphasis of this course is on creative invention and exploration.

• Experimental Personal Filmmaking

  Visual & Media Arts — Emerson College

  Personal Filmmaking focuses on the development of the individual filmmaker’s creative capacity in 16mm film. Working across color reversal film, B/W and color negative film, and direct animation on found footage, students create self-portraits, diary films, experimental home movies, and personal essay films. Through screenings, readings, and guest artist lectures, students critically engage with experimental films that reflect on issues of anti-racism, disability justice, feminism, queer activism, and environmentalism from personal experiences and perspectives. To galvanize projects and deepen self-reflection, students are expected to keep a written journal throughout the semester with prompts about identity, relationship dynamics, dream interpretation, and visions for the future.

• Introduction to 16mm Filmmaking

  Visual & Media Arts — Emerson College

  Introduction to Film Production instructs students in the fundamentals of 16mm filmmaking. Students film on Tri-X (a black and white film stock) using a 16mm Bolex camera and edit their work using an analogue Steenbeck editing table. Students learn about the history of film technology through hands on experience, while advancing their production skills and cinematic artistry—particularly in the areas of cinematography and editing. Screenings, readings, written analysis, and worksheets aid in understanding technology and developing critical thinking. Students are welcome to work across narrative, experimental, and documentary. 

• 4D: Image, Motion, Process

  First Year Program — California College of the Arts

  An introductory course to experimental film and video art. Through in-class film workshops and independent projects, students make 16mm direct animation films, video feedback loops, and green screen performance videos. Through readings, discussions, and response papers, students engage with the socio-political issues raised by the experimental films screened in class, including responses to racism in mainstream cinema, trans representation, queer identity, climate activism, Indigenous sovereignty, and access to healthcare.

• 4D: Time-Based Narrative

  First Year Program — California College of the Arts

  An introductory course on narrative filmmaking. Students gain hands-on experience working in small film crews and editing short films. The course focuses on how form—including shot composition, lighting, sound design, mise-en-scene, story structure, and edit pace—produces meaning within narrative. Screenings include films by Lynn Ramsey, Dee Rees, Boots Riley, Jennifer Reeder, Wong Kar-Wai, Maya Daren, Todd Haynes, & Spike Lee.

• Basic Film Production

  Cinema Department — City College of San Francisco

  This introductory course offers instruction in film production, including the fundamentals of digital and analog camera operation, editing principles, lighting, and sound design. Throughout the semester, students participate in film shoots, formal analysis, and class critiques. Each student completes four films.

• Introduction to Digital Film Editing

  Cinema Department — City College of San Francisco

  Through demonstrations and hands-on experience, students learn to edit digital video with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. While learning the software, students also learn post-production principles and current industry standards.

• Advanced Digital Film Editing

  Cinema Department — City College of San Francisco

  Students gain skills and experience in producing polished, professional projects. Focus is on matching-on-action, sound design, color correction, and mastering.