Cinematography in Europe - 2026 entry

[shockthemonkey]

Does anyone have any suggestions for a French-English bilingual student who wants to study for a Bachelors in cinematography? He loves all the visual arts especially moving images. He definitely wants a degree that puts the accent on hands-on work - camera work, editing, directing, production.

A degree that includes an element of film studies - ie esthetic appreciation, critical study of films in their socio-political contexts - is OK, as long as the main thrust is the practical side.

Happy to learn in either English or French.

I have found a few programmes in the UK but he his family has ruled it out - they want mainland Europe.

I've heard of TAI Madrid, and there's a very good school in the Netherlands but I believe instruction is in Dutch, so probably not for him.

There are some great destinations out there for postgraduate, but I'm finding it hard to know where the quality is for Bachelors programmes.

Thanks if you have any ideas!

What an exciting thing to do. My DH works in film and TV but started in a very academic environment at a uk university.

Have you looked at each of these offerings (some are post-grad, but most are undergrad) in France?

https://www.educations.com/film-studies/france

Thank you! Yes I have seen a few of those and some are on the student's radar. Thanks for the link 😄

Generally speaking, mainland European universities tend to separate practical training into conservatoire schools. So he’d need to look at actual film schools. But generally speaking 18 year olds straight out of school rarely get places … (there will be exceptions).

The UK has a much (better in my view) system of universities integrating practical and theoretical studies, although seriously ambitious filmmakers will go to the conservatoires such as the London Film School.

Training courses are PG mostly, because students need to have a bit of maturity and life experience to be trainable into good film makers.

Nonsense.

Evidence @TattooGuineaPig ? I work in a leading department in the field …

The OP sounds as if the student hasn't yet got his head around what he wants to do in the film world. Wanting to get his hands dirty quickly, so to speak, with the actual making of films is all very well but probably only leads to a technical career. Is that what he wants? If he wants to be a visual story teller he would do well to first do a degree with actual narrative content. This doesn't have to be Film Studies.