35mm Filmmaking in Prague

Spring • Summer • Fall

Program Overview

The 35 mm Directing and Cinematography Program in Prague is a unique opportunity for the aspiring director or director of photography. This is your chance to carry out the vision for your story in a city with a cinematic history that dates back to the late 1800s when a film was made for the first time in Bohemia. The Czech film industry survived political struggles and economic crises, eventually making an impact on cinema with the Czech New Wave in the 1960s.

The Tisch School offers this program in collaboration with Europe’s oldest and most prestigious film school, the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU). FAMU is an independent academy which focuses on audio and visual media. Some of their alumni include Jiri Menzel (Closely Watched Trains), Milos Forman (The People vs. Larry Flynt and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and Agnieszkha Holland (Washington Square).  The FAMU faculty are active members of the filmmaking community. They include established cinematographers, directors, editors, scholars, and writers.

The program in the capital of the Czech Republic provides you with a practical and theoretical approach to 35 mm filmmaking. It is an opportunity for you to complete a 35 mm film with nonsynchronous sound that may later be submitted to various film festivals. Most of the props and costumes for your film are available through Barrandov Studios, one of the largest and oldest film studios in Europe.

Note: The Prague academic year program varies slightly from the summer program. In spring and fall students participate as director and director of photography, and work on two separate interior and exterior individual projects. For summer, students must indicate their preference for either director or director of photography when they apply, or be open to both depending on which position is available (not all students direct in the summer). Students only shoot outdoors during the summer (it’s light out until nearly midnight in Prague in the summer!). 

Prerequisites: Sight and Sound: Film plus Sight and Sound: Studio or Sight and Sound: Documentary; equivalent experience may be substituted; 16 mm cinematographic experience is necessary.
Tisch Film & Television majors must have two Sight & Sound courses in any combination.

Students take the following two courses for a total of 8 units:

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