As a documentary director, you have a story you want to tell. You have an opinion about the world you live in. How you tell that story depends on your creativity, talent, originality and vision.

Film is collaboration
Film projects are always achieved in close collaboration between various areas of expertise. As a director, you have unparalleled insight into every step of the process, from preparation to screening. You’ll be expected to have mastered a lot more than dramatic insight and creativity. You need to have courage and dare to be distinctive, but you also need to be inspiring and decisive. As a director, you need to be able to express your vision in words, explaining your motivations and visualising your intended concept. How do you persuade others to join in your plans, share in your dreams and your ideas? Once you’re in the director’s seat, you have final artistic responsibility.

Storyteller
Whether you opt to focus on directing documentaries or fiction, studying at the Film Academy means being trained to be a storyteller. We live in interesting times, as far as that goes. Today’s media offer a wide range of opportunities and challenges. Obviously, the Academy will teach you skills in traditional forms of storytelling. But you’ll also learn to make optimal use of the opportunities offered by the field we see today.

As a director, you have final artistic responsibility in creating film projects and definitive insight into the entire film process. Like any film, a documentary is created in close collaboration with production, camera, sound design and editing.

A story about real events
At the Film Academy, you are trained to make creative documentaries: documentaries in which the story is told in image and sound, and in which the director’s personal vision is key. In documentary films, a director makes exciting and sometimes unexpected choices in framing, sound design and editing to surprise and entice the viewer. A documentary allows viewers to see the world in a new way.

The documentary has become more popular in the past fifteen years. The IDFA has become the biggest documentary festival in the world, and with good reason. Various documentaries are playing in cinemas these days, and new doors are opening in this field. Storytelling and audience impact are becoming more important. At the same time, budgets are under pressure; you will have to learn how to use new funding options, such as crowd-funding and sponsoring. During your studies at the Film Academy, the traditional aspects of film and the new opportunities will be covered comprehensively.

Programme details
Study load240 EC
Study length4 years, full-time
Language of instructionDutch
CROHO-code34733 (B Film and Television)
TitleBachelor of Arts (BA)
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