MA, MFA and PhD degrees in Film and Media Art

Temple University’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Film and Media Arts is the country’s foremost program in alternative film, video and new media. Faculty train filmmakers, video makers, screenwriters and media artists who seek to challenge the current practices of Hollywood, commercial television, art and the global media. The program thrives on students with diverse interests, strong creative ideas and critical depth. Students from around the world engage in interdisciplinary practices of making art through collaborations across fields of cinema arts, theater, fine arts and visual research.

With approximately 40 graduate students from diverse communities and countries, the program is large enough to offer intellectual stimulation through a wide range of courses, yet small enough to afford individual attention, maximum access to equipment and creative control over one’s own projects.

Narrative filmmakers make innovative films with top indie filmmakers. Students combine professional training in screenwriting, directing, cinematography, editing and producing with project-driven research and courses in emergent technologies. FMA’s leadership in theory-practice results in works that are critically informed, socially vital and culturally diverse. Through partnerships with Theater, filmmakers develop innovative approaches in narrative form.

Documentary filmmakers and media artists work with leading practitioners from across documentary forms, including direct cinema, documentary story-telling, essay film, ethnography, nonfiction installation arts, interactive cinema and documentary studies. Community and university partnerships allow students to grow projects across diverse audiences and cultural groups. Students grow projects through community and international partnerships and find careers across forms of production, international NGOs, field research and education. Nonfiction installation arts, locative media and interactive cinema offerings are complemented by technological support through Temple’s one-of-a-kind Technology Center. Critical approaches to making documentary emphasize activism, diversity, innovation, visual research, emergent technology and the political economy that shapes how images are made, distributed and used worldwide.

Media artists work with leading artists making works for museums, public spaces, interactive cinema, mobile media, kinetic sculpture, performance, projection and the web. Students work collaboratively across fields of motion-picture making, fine arts and performing arts with the Center for the Arts. Media Artists bridge analog and digital forms, from optical-printing and hand-painted film to projected media, mobile media, interactive cinema, physical computing, live media and installation arts. FMA students work within Philadelphia’s vibrant art scene and local communities as well as through national and international networks.

Along with a MFA contrentation in media arts, the Department of Film and Media Arts now offers a one-year, 30-credit master’s program in MediaXarts: Cinema for New Technologies and Environments, which prepares students for professions in the creative design industries, interaction design for public organizations, and emergent cinematic art forms.

Temple University’s Department of Film and Media Arts also offers a PhD through the MFA-PhD Dual Degree Program in Documentary Arts And Visual Research. This innovative, accelerated program offers a unique opportunity to develop advanced work that bridges practice and theory. Students only apply to this program after having completed an MFA at Temple or another institution or during the final thesis year of a MFA Program.