Master's Programme in Film and Media - Directing Documentary

Traditionally, documentary film is a genre that has its starting point in reality, real people and real stories. So it is still, but documentary film has also evolved to become an art form that has its strength in the film maker's very personal point of view and thus relates freely to reality. This is called creative documentary. The documentary director can have an emotional attitude to their material, enrich it creatively with their own visions and make use of all the narrative elements of film, such as editing, music and photography. Basically, as with all film art, it is about having something you really want to tell, being stubborn and having a strong need to communicate with an audience. Our programme is structured so that the documentary filmmaker learns to work both independently and in teams.

The Master's Programme in Film and Media, with specialisation in Documentary Directing

The Master's Programme in Film and Media is a programme for going more indepth that is also research preparatory and has a common programme structure for all specialisations. In the programme’s theory courses, students are introduced to different perspectives on knowledge, theory, reflection and artistic research methods.

The specialisation in documentary directing is one of the team specialisations in the master's programme that forms film teams and collaborations. The students work together in joint lab courses where they explore different forms of film and new media. Documentary film today has several sub-genres, such as essay film, cinema verité, hybrid film and also investigative journalistic film. Documentary film can be character-driven or may be based on the personal or autobiographical. A narrative can be driven with spoken narration or it can be expressed associatively and dialogue-free with only images and sounds. Thus, you can get the experience of working with different types of film – for different platforms and in shorter and longer formats. You gain in-depth knowledge of filmmaking as a process from idea to finished film, where editing is often a decisive phase in the documentary process.

The programme also has methodology courses specific to the specialisation. As a master student in documentary directing, you can practise managing professional workflows from research and idea development to recording, editing and post-production. The insights and knowledge that you acquire in the courses specific to the specialisation are applied in the lab courses and film exercises, which are sometimes carried out in teams.

During the programme you will have many opportunities for interactions across traditional professional boundaries, for example through elective courses that are common to the university’s departments. Here, each student identifies his or her need for further knowledge.

The programme leads to gaining specialist knowledge that prepares for research and for being able to work as a documentary film director.

Language of instruction

Please note! The language of instruction for this programme is Swedish. Please go to the programme's page on our Swedish website for more information.