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Filmmaking, MFA

Create Bold, Cinematic Works With Vision
  • 3-Year

    Immersive Program Provides Hands-On Training, Collaboration and Interdisciplinary Coursework

  • 1:1

    Mentoring With Award-Winning Faculty

  • 12:1

    Class Size Supports Individualized Feedback and Artistic Development

Filmmaking MFA Program Overview

UNCW’s MFA in Filmmaking is a three-year terminal degree for artists exploring all cinematic forms. From the first semester, you'll study film history, aesthetics, and theory while developing creative projects in narrative, documentary, experimental, animation, installation, and new media.

Faculty Mentors

Work closely with award-winning faculty in a supportive, cohort-based curriculum. The lockstep sequence provides regular critiques, workshops, and production milestones, ensuring steady progress toward your thesis film and paper while you receive focused feedback at every stage.

Applied Learning

Gain hands-on experience through community outreach, internships and professional collaborations. These applied projects connect your creative practice to real-world partners and audiences.

UNCW Community

Connect with a thriving campus community during your time at UNCW. The Film Studies Department also offers an M.A. in Film Studies and an active undergraduate program, hosting shared screenings, visiting artists, and cross-program collaboration. Additionally, the program offers a variety of opportunities for building interdisciplinary relationships with other departments such as Art & Art History, Theater, Environmental Studies and Creative Writing.

Wilmington Advantage

Study in Wilmington, North Carolina, a working film city with active productions, festivals, and partners such as Cinespace Studios Wilmington, Working Films, Cucalorus Film Festival, Uptilt Film Festival, North Carolina Black Film Festival, FlowILM and the Cameron Art Museum — a professional ecosystem in a coastal setting.

The MFA Prepares Students for Careers In:

Graduates are equipped to write, direct, and produce their own films across narrative, documentary, experimental, and animated formats. The program’s multimodal emphasis supports the development of versatile, self-sustaining artists who can helm independent projects from concept to distribution. 

The program’s interdisciplinary nature and emphasis on animation, installation, and new media forms make it a strong launchpad for careers in galleries, museums, and public art spaces. Graduates often create work at the intersection of film, art, and technology. 

Hands-on training in production sound, dialogue/ADR, sound design, and mixing prepares students for screen and emerging media while they develop the ear and design process for aural storytelling across forms and platforms.

With training in theory, aesthetics, and pedagogy, many graduates pursue careers as faculty at colleges, universities, and arts institutions.

With experience in film history, critical analysis, and curatorial practice, graduates are well positioned to work as festival programmers, curators, or content strategists. 

Learn To

Direct and produce across cinematic forms — narrative, documentary, experimental, animation, and new media.

Craft compelling stories with strong visual expression and advanced technical skills.

Design and execute professional workflows in cinematography, sound, editing, color, and finishing.

Collaborate and lead interdisciplinary teams while realizing your artistic vision.

Analyze, critique, and contextualize work through film history, theory, and aesthetics.

“ I feel such a strong community here. We’re all creative in our own unique ways. ”
Janneke Wade-de Jong ’25MFA

UNCW Film Studies Program Promo

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A brief introduction to the Film Studies MA and MFA graduate programs.

Resources and Facilities

University Film Center

  • Large equipment room stocked with full range of camera, lighting, grip and sound equipment.
  • 4,000-square-foot sound stage with set, lighting grid and full company power box.
  • Postproduction lab with 20 pro dual 27-inch monitor Mac stations.
  • Sound recording and mixing studio.
  • 70-seat theater with 4K digital projection and 7.1 surround sound.

Kenan Hall

  • New media studio with lighting grid, company power box and green screen, as well as equipment dedicated to immersive sound and video installation production.
  • Media lab and research space with equipment for volumetric video capture, projection mapping, virtual reality, 360 cinema capture, binaural and ambisonic sound recording, and stop motion animation.
  • Postproduction lab with 20 dual 27-inch monitor Mac stations.

King Hall

  • 175-seat high-definition digital movie theater with 7.1 surround sound.

Equipment

MFA in filmmaking students shoot assignments and projects on professional-standard digital and celluloid cameras. Narrative cameras are equipped with high quality prime lens sets, follow focus, matte box and fluid head tripods.

All UNCW students are provided with the Adobe Creative Cloud software suite, which including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Photoshop and InDesign. Post-production labs are equipped with Mac Pro and iMac computers loaded with the software above, as well as Pro Tools, Movie Magic, Final Cut Pro, Izotope RX, Red Giant and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve.

Student focusing camera

Sample Courses

Check out the courses you can take
FST 501 Advanced Practicum in Cinematography
FST 536 Sound Recording and Design
FST 551 Directing the Narrative Film
FST 552 Directing the Documentary Film
FST 553 Directing the Experimental Film
See The Full Curriculum

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