Learn how to write, shoot, edit and screen films within a short timeframe and with strict limitations. Work as part of a production team and respond to challenging briefs as you rotate through the major filmmaking roles: director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, production designer, editor and sound designer. You’ll have opportunities to collaborate with students from other programmes, including actors, visual effects artists and composers

As you move from role to role and put into practice the techniques of each department, from editing to sound and everything in between, you will begin to explore yourself and your own ideas through each aspect of the production process. You will also learn the essential skills of teamwork and collaboration within a filmmaking environment.

Throughout the year, you’ll gain a professional and creative toolkit that will enable you to:  

• Understand and apply the basic principles of each role and department in filmmaking.
• Work with the equipment and software required to create a short film.
• Collaborate on film productions in a team environment. 
• Begin to understand the power of your own voice and how this affects your creative output.
• Investigate your passions through filmmaking.

If you choose to enrol for our HE Certificate, you will take just the first year of this programme as a standalone qualification. The one-year HE Certificate course is the same as the first year of the BA programme and you'll be learning alongside the BA students throughout the year. You have the option of progressing into the second year of our BA programme after successfully completing the HE Certificate, subject to results and availability of places.

Workshops

Development

Your “home room” with your Advisor, guiding you through the modules, projects and assessments which make up the accredited degree. Examine and reflect upon your filmmaking skills from a top-down perspective, including your collaboration, communication, organisation, preparation and professional skills.

Roundtable Feedback

Screen your films and learn how to give and receive critical feedback on your and your peers’ work.

Cinematography, Editing & Colour, Production Design, Post-Processes: Image & Sound Design, and Documentary Production

Practical, tools- and techniques-based workshops designed to get you up to speed on the fundamentals of filmmaking. They will give you a grounding in the equipment, tools, software and hands-on skills needed to complete your projects.

Screenwriting, Producing & Production Management and Directing Characters 

Learn to hone and communicate your ideas and vision to others: cast, crew, industry partners and audience members. 

Frame by Frame, Word by Word, Critical Context & Curation and Documentary Research

Familiarise yourself with the concepts and terminology used in filmmaking, analysis and proposals/pitching through theory-in-practice workshops. Understand the context of your work in relation to other films and media artworks.

After the whirlwind first year of filmmaking, you will be ready for a more focused investigation into what you can bring to the medium and what constitutes quality cinema. 

The course content in your second year will focus on: 

• Narrative storytelling and screenwriting.
• Honing a creative vision.
• Historical and cultural context of cinematic storytelling.
• The creative process of study, experimentation and observation that goes into a film.
• Highly deliberate production of a Perfect Minute – 60 seconds of cinematic perfection.
• How to engage in critical discourse around film.
• Developing project management skills.

Workshops

Screenwriting & Narrative

Explore the origins and evolutionary purpose of story – why are stories that were written thousands of years ago still relevant and resonant today? How do you build long-form stories? What is needed to get an audience to connect emotionally with fiction or dramatisation?

Directing

Explore directing principles and techniques for crafting distinctive and multifaceted characters with comprehensive backstories within fictional cinema, as well as character interaction with the overall visual composition and mise-en-scène. Enhance your abilities in effective leadership, dissecting subtext and dialogue analysis, conveying creative concepts across various departments and devising strategies for conveying character information to actors.

Mise-en-Scène

Anything that is included inside the frame serves in pushing the narrative process forward. Understand and make use of the basic concepts of graphic and visual design. Make informed decisions about light, composition and production design for narrative purposes.

Editing & Narrative

Discover how context and imagery create meaning through time. Manipulate an audience’s emotional experience with tools and tricks of editing, sound and colour. Appreciate rhythm and timing as the engines of cinema.

Audio Storytelling

Sound can create worlds, drive character, conduct an emotional experience and power a narrative. You’ll explore how to utilise sound in your own filmmaking to profound effect by creating audio stories as well as investigating peripheral audio arts, like podcasts and radio dramas.

LABS I, II & III

A series of hands-on workshops covering casting, writing and other industry-focused topics. During these workshops, you will have in-depth dialogues with professionals working within casting, writing, financing, distribution and marketing. Step into the industry by connecting with production and distribution companies based in Berlin and actively participating in the renowned Berlinale Film Festival and Market.

Finally, you’ll work on a major project that integrates everything you’ve learnt. 

In the third year, you’re in control. Time to dedicate yourself and shape work as you see fit. Is it a meticulously executed commercial for a startup that needs your fresh take? Perhaps it’s a narrative, multimedia music video made in collaboration with one of Catalyst’s music students? Maybe you’ll travel with your crew of filmmaking peers back to your home country to make a short film close to your heart. Or will you bring a feature-length film to life? 

Spend the year training in your chosen field to get ready for your final project. Work in short creative bursts, focusing on improving specific skills in the context of the larger whole. That could mean stretching out a scene in your film down to each frame. It could mean exhaustive auditions of every actor in town. As well as the filmmaking tools at your fingertips, you will have the abilities to self-reflect on your own practice, honing your strengths while identifying where you still need work.

Dream it up, assemble your team and make it happen. The third year will see you distribute and release your work to the public, whether that’s applying to your favourite film festivals, getting screened in an art-house cinema or launching a commercial campaign. Don’t worry if that sounds like too much now – by this point of the BA, you’ll have already investigated where your voice will cut above the noise.

Whatever your ambitions, our tutors will push you to reach even further in one-on-one consultations and we’ll support you with our facilities, equipment and network as much as we can.

The course content in your third year will focus on:

• Evolving your approach to your chosen career path, so you leave feeling confident, empowered and with a clear direction.
• Crafting a proposal that will bring your process and use of language to an industry standard.
• Taking the creative lead by writing, directing and producing your projects to completion.
• Undertaking the process of releasing your projects into the wild and getting a handle on film distribution.
• Providing a service in a professional context OR writing a thesis.

The Film Production courses will open up many potential career paths for you. If you complete the first year of study, you will have the skills needed to work as a technician (for example, editing or working a camera) in a freelance context. A deeper dive into the full three years opens up many more routes.

Creatively leading a project is what you will be best prepared for, either as the screenwriter who invents the universe or as producer or director who brings the universe to life. Your understanding of fundamentals across the board will prepare you for a role as editor, sound artist, production designer, cinematographer or media artist. You will also have the ability to fit into specialisations if necessary, including various positions in a film crew, such as assistant director, managing electrics or gaffer. You will also be in a position to work within film distribution or as a media creator who specialises in software or plugin design. You may opt to explore a career as a film critic, festival programmer/curator or work within teaching.

However you measure it and whatever artistic realm you are working in, most creatives would like to achieve success with their creative endeavour. There are many types of success an individual may want to achieve, from successful completion of an artistic exploration all the way through to financial security and a global audience. 

There are many skills required to develop these dreams into real and practical futures. Our optional Self-Development & Creative Leadership course is the ‘rocket fuel’ which will provide you with the frameworks, the focus and the drive to help realise your future.

Gain an understanding of how to take decisive action and communicate powerfully with others, and take an honest look at how you limit yourself. Develop the leadership skills needed to complete your creative project, bring your work into the external world and attract an audience to share, appreciate and follow your work. 

All applicants will be asked to provide: personal and educational information, documentation of their education experience, a portfolio and a personal introduction in the form of a short video. Visit our How To Apply page for more detail.

MINIMUM ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

- Standard entry: graduation from high school at a level which would normally permit entry to university in the country where it was gained. This would be A-Levels in the UK and the Abitur in Germany, for example.

- Non-standard entry: We recognise that not all education happens in the classroom and it may be possible to admit you through a non-standard access route. If you do not possess the required formal qualification, but have acquired relevant professional or life experience, please contact our Admissions team.

- Language: The language of instruction in all our courses is English and applicants must demonstrate a level equal to IELTS 6. We do not ask for official exam results, but we will assess the standard of English in your application and support materials.

For more information, please contact our Admissions team and we’d be happy to discuss your opportunities to come study with us.

Course start: mid-September 2025

Applications for entry to our courses in 2025 will open on Friday 1 November 2024.

Our application deadlines are as follows:

• Deadline for applicants requiring student visa to enter Germany: Friday 28 March 2025
• Priority deadline: Friday 4 April 2025
• Summer Short Course deadline: Friday 23 May 2025
• Final deadline: Friday 30 May 2025
• Late applications: From June 2025 onwards

All international applicants requiring a student visa to enter Germany should apply by 28 March 2025. Visit this website to find out if you require a student visa to enter Germany.

For all other applicants (including EU, EEA and Swiss citizens), we strongly recommend that you apply by our priority deadline (4 April 2025) for your best chances of securing a spot on your chosen course. You have up until our final deadline (30 May 2025) to apply, although we cannot guarantee there will still be places available. Visit our How To Apply page for more info about which citizens can enter Germany without a visa.

We only accept late applications from those who do not need a student visa to enter Germany. If the course is full, you will be added to a waiting list.

We offer two ways to pay:

• Single Payment Option:
  Enrolment Fee* €895 + Tuition Fee €12,055 = €12,950 per year**
• Instalment Payment Option:
  Enrolment Fee* €895 + 10 instalments x €1,305.50 = €13,950 per year**

*Enrolment fee is non-refundable. It is due every year as part of the total annual fee.
** BA degree = 3 years x total annual fee.

If you decide to enrol in both a 4-week Summer Short Course and a degree course with us in the same year, you will receive a discount of 500€ on the total tuition.

Get a feel for Catalyst and our courses at a range of both online and in-person events. Join us at a Virtual Open Day or an Open Day at our campus in Berlin, chat to our programme leads at Meet The Tutor, or try a taster workshop.