MA Filmmaking (Directing Fiction)

The MA Filmmaking (Directing Fiction) is the premier place to develop your skills as a director, working on a range of projects from personal ‘essay’ films to large-scale shoots with professional actors and feature crew.

• This Masters, a pathway of MA Filmmaking, will enable you to gain a full understanding of how to collaborate on all stages of filmmaking, from scripting and pre-production through shoot, post-production and marketing/exhibition of your work. It will build your skills and confidence in expressing your unique vision and conveying it to your team.
• The programme is housed in a purpose-built media facility equipped with state-of-the art teaching spaces.
• We have extensive production facilities and informal rehearsal and meeting spaces where you can discuss and collaborate with scriptwriters, actors, producers and your shoot team.
• We also have established relations with casting directors, agents, production designers and other professionals who will both advise you and provide their skills to enhance your productions.
• You work on at least one film per term in your specialist role, culminating in a major production towards the end of the degree.
• In addition to your specialist area, you attend classes in related disciplines such as film directing and editing, and collaborate with students across specialisations on film projects. This framework is designed to stimulate collaborative practice by providing you with a breadth of filmmaking knowledge combined with a high level of expertise in your chosen filmmaking discipline.
• The Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies has been ranked second in the UK for 'world-leading or internationally excellent' research (Research Excellence Framework, 2021) and 16th in the world (third in the UK) in the 2024 QS World Rankings for communication and media studies.

Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Nigel Bristow.

You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least second class standard in a relevant/related subject as well as a level of practical experience from work in the arts or the media.

You might also be considered for some programmes if you aren’t a graduate or your degree is in an unrelated field, but have relevant experience and can show that you have the ability to work at postgraduate level.

Because funding deadlines and requirements vary around the world, applications are considered on a rolling basis from February onwards and places on the programme fill up across the recruitment cycle. For this reason, we strongly advise you to submit your completed application as early as you can.

International qualifications

We accept a wide range of international qualifications. Find out more about the qualifications we accept from around the world.

If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 7.0 with a 7.0 in writing and no element lower than 6.5 to study this programme.

Where this degree can take you

On completing the programme you will be equipped to enter the global job market, armed with an enhanced understanding of your practical, intellectual and creative capacities as a director.

Possibly the most important skill we furnish you with is the rigorous discipline of working collaboratively under pressure as part of a creative team on challenging projects.

In addition to your practical filmmaking skills, we enable you to develop a variety of transferable intellectual, organisational and communication skills to equip you for a broad range of employment opportunities across the arts and media landscape (film, television, online, the creative arts, advertising and related hybrid forms).

Our graduates

Recent alumni are active in the film, media and cultural industries around the world as:

• Directors of photography
• Cinematographers
• Camera operators
• Lighting designers

Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths.