The semester in Lisbon stands as the entry level of the study in which students develop their fundamental technical skills and knowledge of documentary film. The introductory curriculum encompasses the essential theoretical and aesthetics notions of documentary, the technical aspects of filmmaking, and the basis of creative documentary filmmaking through emphasizing the practical approach.

Classes are taught by local filmmakers, film scholars and professional specialized practitioners, as well as by invited international lecturers and experts. 

Theoretical and practical courses are conducted in short period modules and workshops, whose instructional content builds progressively throughout the semester. Workshops take in to account the different level of technical competences of each student upon entering the program, according to previous experience and study background.

Several film exercises are performed, either individually or collaboratively in small teams, guided by instructors or assigned mentors on a regular basis. In the last stage of the semester each student develops and produces a short documentary film aiming to enrich his/her portfolio of individual work.

Students also receive classes on documentary history, and are taught to examine critically a range of classic and contemporary films in various contexts, which should inspire the conceptualizing of their own strategies to film practices.

While attending DocLisboa International Film Festival students have contact with the industry side of documentary filmmaking by attending the public part of a pitching forum where new projects are presented each year before an international panel of commissioning editors, broadcasters, sales agents and co-producers.

Fieldwork in regional Portugal

Course supervisors: Margarida Cardoso and Tiago Hespanha

This course aims at complementing students’ theoretical and practical knowledge in documentary film directing, by means of a film exercise departing from an assigned topic and focusing in subjects to be encountered within the territory of a small area in regional Portugal, to which students will be brought in.

This immersive fieldwork experience on location will take place in a period of about two weeks, in which students team up in groups to carry out the tasks of research, develop and produce short length collaborative documentaries under the guidance of their instructors.

Building in previously acquired knowledge on artistic, technical and methodological aspects that intervene in the making of the documentary film, this learning experience aims at students improve skills to cooperate with team partners in creating collective film projects under the constrained framework of intensive film production in unfamiliar environments.

Activities and Screenings in DocLisboa International Film Festival

Course supervisor: Victor Candeias

Within the framework of this activities-based course unit, students attend sessions in DocLisboa International Film Festival, which has become one of the foremost documentary festivals in Europe.

Students attend the screening of recent films from all around the world and have personal contact with some of their makers. They get to know how a festival works, its characteristic ambiance, recent trends in film selection and its festival programming. They should see a wide variety of film works, as well as build contacts with festival participants and organisers.

Students also take part in professional conferences and other events of the festival’s programme, including the public side of the professional pitch forum where a selection of new projects are proposed every year to an international panel of commissioning editors, broadcasters, sales agents and co-producers.

Depending on the type of visits and screenings, students may attend a selected programme of films and events led by the course supervisor, or follow an independent programme according to their personal interests and time conveniences.

Focus on Cinematics

Instructors and Mentors in Film Exercises: Margarida Cardoso, Tiago Hespanha, Victor Candeias

The course aims to give students a practical experience of filmmaking through which they learn how to explore the potential of their own artistic ideas in order to create their first documentaries fully produced within the course. 

In this curricular unit students will build on the technical and aesthetical lessons in cinematography, sound recording, editing and sound postproduction and will learn fundamental notions, methods and practices of documentary-making, from the research and development stages to shooting material and assembling it in to a coherent film discourse.

This learning experience covers the last two months in the semester, with key classes running parallel to the execution of all steps of development and production of the student’s individual film project for the semester exam. As every phase of the work progresses, students receive personalised mentorship suited to the specifics of their projects’ development and production.

History, Theory, and Aesthetics

Lecturer: Nuno Sena

This theoretical course proposes an introduction to the history and aesthetics of documentary film practice, in order to give students a wide-ranging understanding of some of the most significant landmarks in the evolution of the documentary art form.

Classes focus on the screening of a selection of films acclaimed as essential references in the tradition of western documentary, covering the period from the early forms of the 1920’s to the foundations of modern documentary in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Further analysis intends to provide an understanding of the context of the periods in which the films were produced by examining correlated cultural, social, artistic and technical influences.

Organised around lectures, screenings and discussions, the course topics are contextualised and put in perspective through preparatory reading of academic literature and through personal research.

Tools and Aesthetics

Instructors: David Novack, Graça Castanheira, João Pedro Plácido, Nuno Trigo, Pedro Filipe Marques, Tony Costa, Victor Candeias.

The curricular unit is divided in to course modules and workshops with the complementary training required for the production of documentary films: namely Camera and Lighting Cinematography, Sound Production on Location, Editing and Post, Sound Editing and Mixing.

The workshops, which include individual short exercises, are strictly aimed to demonstrate workflow processes, functioning tools and operative methods relating to the technical equipment and software that students have access to use in the semester.

The other lessons in the mandatory modules of the Documentary Skills course have a complementary purpose, which is focused mostly on theory, aesthetics and advanced techniques in terms of how to use tools creatively.

These learning steps aim to strengthen the individual skills that are required in the assigned film exercises throughout the semester. In a broader context it aims to familiarise students with the procedures to be carried out by a very small crew in documentary production.

Lectures and Screenings

Lecturer: Miguel Cardoso

This theoretical course examines the historical conditions for the emergence of the most widespread representations of Portugal as an “imagined community”, and its place within a world system. It draws on Portuguese cinema, but also on a variety of cinematic and visual culture concepts to interrogate the ideas of coherence, continuity and closure that the idea of “Portugal” implies. 

Rather than a linear progression through Portuguese history and cinema, lessons are organised thematically, offering multiple and interconnected entry-points, and allowing for a continuous crossing over between films and other discourses and objects, both within and beyond the cultural field.  

Although they are interconnected, the course is divided between in-class lessons, where the main focus is on Portuguese culture, history and identity, and screenings at the national film archive (Cinemateca Portuguesa) and at the campus' cinema theatre, followed by a discussion focused mainly on the selection of films watched to approach their positioning in terms of aesthetical and period contexts and/or from cultural, sociological, political and historical perspectives.

Notwithstanding the exclusive presentation of local films, these classes aim to foster the students’ ability to develop a sense of critical analysis on a range of cinematic topics that echoes in other contemporary western European film production in the XX century.