“Nothing is more fantastic than reality.”

Federico Fellini’s sentence whets our desire for expeditions into the everyday world; the desire to take on the challenge – to discover truth in reality and relate it in images. Working dramaturgically with the magic of the authentic image – that’s the essence of all documentary depiction. It takes an alert eye, emotional engagement, intellectual proficiency, character and sensitivity, but also a good dose of irreverence toward hierarchies and bureaucracy. Documentary films must pose essential questions, instead of giving supposed answers.

It’s all about investigating subjects and story material, and the artist’s struggle with form. You learn filmmaking by making films. For this reason our study program is centered on practical experience (in addition to the essential theoretical knowledge). Our students learn to investigate reality, are challenged and supported in their search for topics and their own visual language.

Documentary films frequently fly in the face of a growing media hype, in order to tell society about the essential in what is real. “Documentary is what documentary does.” This sentence by Lindsay Anderson is truer than ever.