Let me save you ten weeks of your life. Don't take it. Nope. Don't. This was the most disorganized class I've taken at UCLA and it's unfortunate because this class had the potential to be great. The professor was less than competent to teach, even though he clearly has the knowledge. The TAs run the class because the professor is clueless as to what is happening with the course. You will wish you were anywhere else than in that lecture...
The class has 3 papers and a final exam. Readings every week posted on CCLE.
Pick a different film class, this one just isn't worth your time.

To bring those complaining down to earth, this class was a mess because of the class itself--NOT Desser. UCLA smashed every region of the world minus Europe and half of North America into a single class. Other courses focus on Europe only and can meander around country by country for weeks at a time. Here, Desser (who took the class last minute apparently) was tasked with condensing the history of entire national cinemas into a singular class session. Then show a film for it the next. That is somewhere between impossible and downright unfair for him AND us. No wonder it seemed "disorganized". He didn't have time to stop down and give in-depth focus on literally anything. Maybe don't take the class because the design per UCLA is a mess. BUT I wouldn't say don't take Desser if he is teaching something else.

That being said, I received an A. I am also not even a film major nor minor so I had no background to fall back on. The class was NOT hard. At all. If you showed up, did the 3 papers (which were super short on whatever movie you wanted to watch), and did the final you were solid. I didn't even do ANY reading the entire quarter until it was time for the final. Skimmed them for a day and took it, getting an A in the end. I think this is a c

He is literally the worse professor I've ever had for all my four years of UCLA here. He is disorganized, not helpful, a hard grader, has high expectations without being clear about what they are, not understanding, sarcastic, unprofessional and overall will make your life a living hell. He is very hard to communicate with and is very passive aggressive. His lectures are very long, dry, and boring which is why nobody goes. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS with all means.

This is my first film class and I do like the material covered by Professor Desser. The movies he chose were all very meaningful and always teared me up. I do agree that the amount of time we spent on each national cinema is very short, but it's really not the professor's problem. If you wanna learn more about the world cinema and see how it's different from Hollywood, this is a good class to take. Papers and the final exam are not hard. I really appreciate the fact that this class gave me the chance to watch more classic movies and learn more about other countries. Participation is required, but I did learn a lot from lectures and discussions.