Program Overview

Our MA in Film Practices will prepare you for work in the independent film industries, as well as helping to develop your critical, communication and creative skills. You will learn about various modes of non-traditional film production alongside practical knowledge of film curation and exhibition, and the promotion of independent film culture. This film practices degree will help prepare you to be a confident and intellectual film professional.

You will be introduced to some of the most important and fiercely independent ways of making film - often entirely outside of the film industry. You will gain an overview of the contemporary global film industry and, more specifically, the diverse film cultures of London, as well as engaging with the most pressing critical and ethical concerns facing filmmakers today, including how to independently create a decolonised culture of responsible and confident filmmakers in the era of #oscarssowhite, #metoo and Extinction Rebellion.

This course in film practices will foster you to become an intellectual artist-filmmaker. You will have multiple opportunities to develop your skillset with hands on practice, and you will engage with various kinds of film production, including activist videos, essay-films, found footage video-essays, first-person filmmaking and more, while also gaining work experience through organisations like the Fest Film Festival in Espinho, Portugal, with whom we have partnered for this course. Fest itself is committed to practical education, film criticism, ethics and independent practices and doing an internship with them will allow you to work with film professionals, festival organisers and other delegates from around the world. You can also choose to undertake a work placement in London, and will be able to take full advantage of Roehampton’s extensive network of industry contacts to do so.

You will have full use of our state-of-the-art production and exhibition facilities in the brand-new Sir David Bell Building, which houses film studios, production suites and a cinema. You will be invited to research seminars and other events as part of the Centre for Research in Film and Audiovisual Cultures (CRFAC), and will receive an induction at the British Film Institute Library.

You will be taught by leading scholars who combine theoretical work with various types of practice, including independent film production, film criticism, film programming, consultancy and other work in galleries and film festivals. The teaching staff share vast experience not just in alternative film production methods, but also in precisely the curatorial and critical practices that this MA offers.

Assessments range from traditional essays through to short videos that engage with issues of representation and ethics, essay filmmaking, videographic and/or online film criticism, and devising original film programmes. Your final Research Project can be delivered in various forms, including traditional written dissertations, audiovisual dissertations and dissertations centred upon curatorial practices. In addition to a comprehensive induction in the autumn term, you will have an independent research day in the summer term where you will present your research and receive feedback from an invited guest speaker