School of Film/Video

In the workshop environment, each student develops and refines his or her practice as a respected member of a community of artists. Individually and collectively, the program’s faculty is broad in its sympathies and interests. The program supports an unparalleled breadth of work—from personal essays and political documentaries to experiments in narrative, from lyrical and abstract films to installation and expanded cinema. Students acquire a full range of technical and practical skills, learn to think critically about their chosen media, and work to develop a precise language and aesthetic for personal articulation.

The faculty maintains that, as filmmaker Fernando Solanas once put it, “The possibility of making a new cinema completely outside the system depends on whether or not filmmakers can transform themselves from ‘directors’ into total filmmakers. And no one can become a total filmmaker without being a film technician, without being capable of handling the production.” To enable students to understand the fundamental processes of film and video production, the first years of both the undergraduate and graduate curricula are devoted to rigorous technical training, including core workshops in film and video production, editing workflows, sound production and design. These workshops also help students to acquire a valuable set of vocational skills—abilities that can serve as a future means of financial support as graduates of the program pursue their own personal work.

Importantly, the Program in Film and Video embraces the rapid technological changes that are broadening and democratizing access to the means of making films and videos while continuing to teach and support the use of technologies such as 16mm film. Students are encouraged to develop and utilize this wide array of potentials in order to better control the means of production and thus assert themselves as truly independent artists.