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California Institute of the Arts

MFA: Film and Video

School of Film/Video

People in a room with filming equipment working on various tasks

Mujer, Mar, y Muerte thesis film shoot. Director: Fernanda Jurado. 

Technical expertise meets artistic refinement

Combining a reverence for tradition with a bold eye toward influencing the future of filmmaking, the three-year MFA Film and Video program is designed to prepare candidates for the sustained pursuit of filmmaking excellence. Our rigorous curriculum equips you with solid technical expertise and a deep historical and critical understanding in your area of focus, all while keeping you abreast of technological changes in the film landscape. Over the course of the three years, MFA candidates develop a substantial body of work that integrates cutting-edge and classic approaches to the craft.

Brightly colored abstract image from an art film installation with silhouette of a figure with an outstretched hand.

Christina C. Nguyen (MFA 16), film installation.

  • Top 5 “Film School Titans”
  • #6 American Film School
  • 8:1 student-faculty ratio

    in CalArts’ School of Film/Video

Expression and exploration

MFA Film and Video

As an MFA Film and Video candidate at CalArts, you’ll join other filmmakers—students and faculty alike—in a workshop environment designed for artists who use film and video as media for personal expression and exploration.

Let’s connect

You’ll also become a life-long member of our community of artists, developing and refining your practice within CalArts’ unique educational model that brings the spectrum of visual and performing arts together under one roof. Individually and collectively, the program’s faculty is broad and deep in its sympathies and interests. The program supports an unparalleled breadth of work—from personal essays and political documentaries to experiments in narrative; from lyrical and abstract films to installation and expanded cinema. You’ll acquire a full range of technical and practical skills, learn to think critically about your chosen media, and work to develop a precise language and aesthetic for personal articulation.

The faculty maintains that, as filmmaker Fernando Solanas once put it, “The possibility of making a new cinema completely outside the system depends on whether or not filmmakers can transform themselves from ‘directors’ into total filmmakers. And no one can become a total filmmaker without being a film technician, without being capable of handling the production.”

To facilitate a solid understanding of the fundamental processes of film and video production, the first year is devoted to rigorous technical training, including core workshops in film and video production, editing workflows, sound production, and design. These workshops also help students to acquire a valuable set of vocational skills—abilities that can serve as a future means of financial support as you pursue your own personal work after graduation.

Importantly, the MFA Film and Video program embraces the rapid technological changes that are broadening and democratizing access to the means of making films and videos, while continuing to teach and support the use of traditional technologies such as 16mm film. You’ll be encouraged to develop and utilize this wide array of potentials in order to better control the means of production, and thus assert yourself as a truly independent artist.

Over the course of the three years, graduate students are expected to achieve technical expertise, to gain historical and critical perspective in their area of focus, and to produce a substantial body of work. In your first year of the curriculum, you’ll take a full schedule of foundation classes, including technical and production workshops as well as classes in history, theory, and criticism. You will meet regularly with your mentor and other program and visiting faculty as you begin to produce work. In your third semester, you must propose and gain approval for a thesis project at a preliminary thesis review. The next year and a half are focused on the production and completion of a thesis film, video, or installation.

All MFA candidates in Film and Video are required to complete a first-year project, complete a thesis proposal in the second year, and pass a final thesis review in order to complete the program and earn the degree.
 

Admission requirements

To be considered for the BFA Art program, you must complete an application and all program-specific requirements, including: a portfolio of images representative of your work, an artist statement, a brief video introduction, and two letters of recommendation. Before applying, please familiarize yourself with the detailed application requirements and resources available to assist you in this important process. 

View detailed admission requirements

Degree requirements

All MFA Film and Video students are required to complete a first-year project, complete a thesis proposal in the second year, and pass a final thesis review in order to complete the program and earn the degree.

MFA Film and Video academic requirements

Interdisciplinary opportunities

In addition to CalArts’ naturally collaborative atmosphere, the Institute provides several programs of study that can be pursued concurrently with a student’s chosen metier, such as a concentration in Arts Education or Integrated Media.

MFA concentrations

Courses you might take

What courses would you take as an MFA Film and Video student? Browse the courses offered in the School of Film/Video, one of the world’s foremost places for the study and practice of the art of the moving image as a personal, evolving, and innovative artform.

Explore our course catalog

Meet the faculty

At CalArts, faculty and students are collaborators, teaching, learning, and working together as members of our community of artists. 

What will you make?

Film/Video Showcase 2024

Each spring, the School of Film/Video presents a juried selection of films by BFA and MFA students in its programs—a diverse collection of innovative cinematic works and a culmination of hard work and dedication throughout the year.

2024 Film Video Showcase graphic

Some of our alumni

More School of Film/Video alumni

M. David Mullen’s Emmy three-peat

Alumni Story

Acclaimed cinematographer M. David Mullen (Film/Video MFA 91) won the 2023 Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (One Hour) for his work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s series finale “Four Minutes,” the third such award he’d earned for his work on the show. 

A retro television set with several cameras pointed at a lone woman in a 1950s-style dress standing and speaking into a microphone.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, 2023 series finale, “Four Minutes.” 

Related news

News from the CalArts Film/Video community 

More Film/Video news

If I Were Any Further Away I’d Be Closer to Home

Alumni Story

Rajee Samarasinghe (MFA 16) described a collection of his films screening at LA Film Forum as a “silent poem reflecting on the place of my mother’s birth and her first traces on earth … a generational portrait [that] becomes a perceptual voyage into memory, experience, and touch.” 

Closeup of a woman’s face, in a dark space with small dapples of light on her nose and cheeks. She arrears to be crying.

Gallery

Want to learn more?

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