Admission
Participation in the admission for Film in Practice consists of writing a motivation letter, presenting a portfolio and completing an assignment. These three files must be uploaded before 12 June 23:59 in Osiris, the KABK's application system. If these are of sufficient quality, the student is invited for the second round. The second round is an online admission interview with the lecturer and coordinator.
If these are of sufficient quality, you will be invited for the second round, in which you will be interviewed online by the tutor about your motivation.
After your application is reviewed, you will be informed whether you are invited to the interview in the last week of June.
The admission interview date for PA Film in Practice is on Thursday 26 June 2025 morning 10:00-14:00.
You can apply as of 15 April 2025 until 12 June 23;59 for this course through Osiris. You may find the link at the bottom of this page.
Specific entrance requirements – Film in Practice
Motivation letter (1/3)
Help us foster a diverse group of students in the class that will be keen to collaborate with each other. Aside from presenting yourself from a professional viewpoint, we would like to know more about each candidate. Please, give us an insight to your perspectives about the world you are a part of. What message to the world do you manifest? What do you stand for? What do you stand up against? And what would your utopian habitat be?
Keep the motivation short and impactful – no more than 500 words.
Portfolio (2/3)
Present images that highlight your interests and fascinations as a maker. The portfolio may serve as a visual extension to your motivation letter.
The selection of images can be any type of photography (such as mobile phone snapshots of impressions, portraits, elaborate still lives, photo journalism, documentary photography, fashion shoot…), as well as drawings, sketches, paintings, graphic novel or stills from your own videos.
All the images have to be made by yourself.
Compile a document of at least 10 and maximum of 15 images. The portfolio (max. 20 MB) should be uploaded as a PDF in Osiris during the online application process.
Assignment (3/3)
Theme: ‘Off the Hook’
Shoot fictional or real-life moments when you are released from your daily duties. Define the rhythm and pacing of your short by deciding on the length and amount of shots yourself. The film can be a disorienting and fragmented chaos of impressions, a well pre-rehearsed one taker, an introduction to a documentary or a fiction film, or even a complete short story in three acts.
Runtime: exactly 60 seconds (not less and not more)
For this assignment, you can use your phone, or any camera at hand. If you don’t have experience with film editing software, you may edit your work on any available free software, such as iMovie, Premiere Rush or DaVinci Resolve.
Upload the video as mp4 (max. 100 MB) in Osiris OR upload it to Youtube / Vimeo and add the link to Osiris.
Description
While watching films, our emotional landscape gets stirred, turned over, changed. Through film we immerse ourselves into stories not ours. Film helps us relate to experiences we might not necessarily have had in real life. It is fascinating to realise that this magic happens in the camera frame and then on a two-dimensional screen.
In this course, we will go step by step through the process of putting it all together.
The medium incorporates many different forms of expression like a sponge. Besides learning the technical ingredients of films, you will build personal libraries of influences and sources – not only from motion picture films but also video art, theatre, music, performance, fashion, and your own field of research.
You will gather personal stories, experience, anything that moves, breathes life, talks and makes noise. Film is about life: anything that you encounter and engage with. This all we incorporate into our own subjective narratives and translate them into moving images.
You will be invited to work with alter-egos and people who represent you. You will work with performance in relation to space, surroundings, and atmosphere through light, colour and sound. You will be acquainted with the theatrical queer toolbox and experimental filmmaking. You will observe the world and bring it to your audience via the camera frame, sound and words.
This is a practice-oriented course. Practice means hands-on practical work. There is a healthy balance between making, researching with cinematic tools, reflecting and analysing film and moving images.
Semester 1
The first semester is in all respects an orientation phase.
You will be learning about the basic skills of filmmaking through making - camerawork and editing. These moving image exercises will be done in a collaborative spirit. You will also be asked to finish the assignments on your own terms outside of class. Interwoven with practical work, we will watch and analyse a variety of works from the film and the art worlds, as to expand the possibilities to your own final project.
Semester 2
The second semester is about your final film project that draws from your direct experience or imagination. It can be your solo project, a collaboration with your classmates or with people outside the institute.
You will gently be brought into a process-driven workflow. You will surf on beginner’s luck. You will struggle with the medium. And you will share your joys and enthusiasm as your work will strike an emotional chord.
There is a phased planning timeline in place. It also encompasses time to test your ideas through try-outs and feedback, and if needed, adapt or even change your plan. Through insights and the process, you will find your own form (genre).
At the finish line, you will present your work proudly as a video installation or a cinema screening.
Learning objectives
You will be acquainted with the complex layeredness of filmmaking. What it takes to compose an image and how to tell a story in a time-based context further by working with sound and montage.
You will develop a feel for the psychological and emotional connections that film induces in a time-based experience. And you will understand how this is achieved, so you can achieve it in your own work as well.
You will learn how to research and write your project, plan it out and execute it. You will be aware of the roles in the filmmaking process and delegate them. You will gain the foundational tools to make films independently, as well as seek collaborations through the crucial stages of the filmmaking process. This also means that you will know how to get the cast and crew that supports and enriches your vision.
Next to showing your work, you will be able to talk about it to a wider audience.
Schedule
Online admission interview: Thursday 26 June 2025 morning 10:00-14:00 (date is not negotiable, so please reserve this date already in your calendar)
Lessons: Wednesday from 18.30 – 21.30 hrs at KABK Prinsessegracht building first floor.
Period: This course takes place during the full academic year; 14 lessons in Semester 1, and 14 lessons in Semester 2. Start date: first week of September.
Location: KABK, Prinsessegracht 4, Den Haag
Room: Theory room, cinema and workshops.
Mode of instruction
Live classes with individual guidance and peer-to-peer feedback, assignments, workshops, presentations and collective analyses.
Mode of assessment
Attendance requirement of 80%
Individual assessment of the deliverables:
Completed assignments
Submitted final film plan
Completed and presented final project
Participation in the final exhibition / screening
Information
Registration
For the academic year 2025-2026, please register before 12 June 2025 at 23:59.
NB: This course is NOT available in Usis.
Registration: you can register for the course via this link.
Remarks
This course is part of Practicum Artium. These courses are exclusively intented for students of Leiden University.
For other courses in the domains of fine arts and music, please visit: Elective courses music and fine arts