Across our projects, we have witnessed how adopting a research mentality can transform film practice and education into living entities shaped by everyone involved in it. In their daily practice, the filmmakers, artists and teachers of the Film Academy are already researching and gaining (practical) knowledge which – when harnessed – can become a unique contribution to what is commonly understood by ‘research.’ Positioned at the crossroads between art practice and knowledge production, research can become flexible and responsive to the shifting landscape of cinema and the world it is made in. 

We have seen that it stimulates individuals to experiment, inviting them to question conventional ways of making and deepen their curiosities through innovating with the language of film. 

We have seen the tangible effects of feeding these outcomes back into teaching to educate a new generation of imaginative, critical makers. 

We have seen the exciting collaborations and connections that evolve out of sharing these projects, both in the local and international film and research community. 

Our department aims to offer time and space for this research mentality to grow and be taught as well as reflecting on how to create better infrastructure to share and support research. Below, you can read an overview about our projects and how they align with our vision. 

The Greenhouse programmes – one for students, one for teachers and staff – invite participants from the Film Academy to plant the seed of their own research idea and then cultivate it under the guidance and financial support of the Research Department. This project allows us to tap in directly to what is on the minds of our community and give them space to grow new ideas relevant to the Academy. 

The AI Greenhouse explores all the different ways in which AI can be employed in the process of film production, post-production, distribution and archivization in a creative, ethical and sustainable manner. The Research Department also explores the impact of AI on film within the context of the AHK-wide AI-Research Group as well as the organisation of related events. 

The department’s involvement in AHK’s AIR Programme enables us to invite external artists to explore their own research topic at the Academy. Stimulating a mutually beneficial relationship between artist, school and students, the selected artists always feed back into the curriculum of the Academy. 

The Research Group (Kenniskring) offers the core team of the Master’s programme and our own Research Coordinator 20% of their work time to develop their own research. Each teacher-researcher has their own project that is often explored with Master’s students in the form of workshops.

The Fellows Group invites alumni of the Master’s to apply for financial support to build on the research they were developing during their studies. This project both provides continuity to their projects post-graduation and nourishes the connection between the Fellows and current students as they share their process within the Academy.

FilmED provides teaching staff the much-needed time, space and community to develop their own pedagogy. This collaboration between Film Academy, Łódź Film School (Poland) and HDK-Valand (Sweden) invites teachers to work together and inspire one another in order to produce new methods, assignments, workshops and curricula. 

The Master of Film: Artistic Research in and through Cinema is the foundation out of which the department grew from and now maintains a strong reciprocal connection to. This unique two-year course offers filmmakers time and space to ‘think through making,’ cultivating a research mentality in their practice. 

The Research Atlas is an in-house platform for the Master of Film: Artistic Research in and through Cinema. Responding to the need for a custom, living archive that can host different forms of research, this is an archive of projects that enables interdisciplinary collaborations and the sharing of knowledge.

Turning Round the House is a playful methodology that we created in-house to tap into the hive-mind of the community to help design the Research Atlas. Turned into a ready-to-use manual, it can now be used by other institutions to retrieve and address their own infrastructural needs. 

The NFA Research Weekend is a live event organised to consolidate all the different research projects we have initiated within the Film Academy. Grouping together our research community for the first time, participants had a chance to meet, share the stage and present their work to each other. 

Our library of Publications ensures that our Research Projects take a tangible form, providing a reflection on the process and a means to share and archive any outcomes.