Filmmaking in Brussels

The MA program in Filmmaking offers a one-year, full-time arts education program. Its goal is to build the profile of an independent and professional film maker/artist whose understanding of contemporary cinema culture is informed by a strong sense of aesthetics and ethics. The student’s individual practice is the basic point of reference throughout the program and leads to the graduation project that includes both an audiovisual work and a written essay.

The program puts great emphasis on the interaction between the school’s input and the student’s contribution. It builds on skills gathered in a Film or Audio-visual Arts Bachelor Program and offers no specific training anymore in terms of acting directing, lighting, editing, script writing and so forth. Within the broad framework of cinema (including arthouse film, artist’s film, diverse documentary practices and non-generic mainstream moviemaking) it offers instead a continuous program of mandatory activities that includes workshops, seminars, lectures, presentations by visiting filmmakers and visual artists, group presentations, group discussions, film screenings and excursions to exhibitions that offer a wide range of ideas and positions from the contemporary field of cinema culture and audio-visual arts.

Students contribute their own knowledge, sensitivities, skills, aspirations, motivation and commitment. In regular peer to peer meetings, they report and communicate with each other on the progress of their graduation project. By using this input and through ongoing dialogue with tutors, lecturers and fellow students, they develop a critical vocabulary and learn to formulate adequate artistic research questions and responses as well as to reach solutions independently, culminating in the showing of a personal and creative finished audio-visual work where they demonstrate a personal signature as well as the mastering of directing skills. 

Mars, Oman, Vanessa del Campo - selected by Visions du Réel 2019

The program is designed to take a closer look at the problems and possibilities that arise when students/future filmmakers develop a work of art. It does not discriminate between narrative or documentary or experimental cinema practices. On the contrary, it helps students position themselves in the film practice(s) of their choice and achieve their artistic intentions by understanding the achievements of others. It lets students understand the strategies and tactics as well as knowledge and skills involved in the production of audio-visual artwork. Individual practice is at its very centre: a continuous and independent working pattern that seeks a dialogue with similar as well as different practices. In this process, the students can rely on a dialogue about the work’s practical and technical dimensions as well as about content matter with personal tutors. 

The program is part of LUCA School of Arts. It stimulates interaction with the departments on our campus as well as those from LUCA-campuses in Leuven, Ghent and Genk.

Students research film and animation cultures as well as visual arts and media histories, and their socio-historical contexts. They develop writing and speaking skills that enable them to express themselves in a critical and nuanced way about their own and other people’s works. The sharpening of cultural knowledge and sensibilities is geared towards the students’ film practices within a research framework that favours the complementarity of classroom and film set, of theory and practice, of thinking and doing.

Trailer Sons of No One, Hans Vannetelbosch - VAF Wildcard Fiction winner 2017