NFTS is one of the best film schools in Europe

We list world's top film and television schools. Our main focus is on Europe, US and India. They say world's best directors didn't go to any film school. In other words, they were the pioneers and actually invented the wheel. Wise people also they there's no need to re-invent the wheel. Joining a film course teaches you how to appreciate and make good cinema within a short time. It equips you with tools and craft of cinema.

Arguably, National Film and Television School, UK, is one of the best in Europe. The NFTS is about 25 miles west of London in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Just guess who heads the School governing body. LORD ATTENBOROUGH CBE, the director of 'Gandhi', is the President, Board of Governors.

In 1970, The National Film School (as it was first named) bought the old Beaconsfield Film Studios in Buckinghamshire and started four permanent departments - production, camera, editing and sound - and in 1971 the first intake of 25 students passed through the studio gates.

Directors Mike Radford (The Merchant of Venice, Il Postino), Bill Forsyth (Local Hero) and Ben Lewin (Ally McBeal), pioneering documentarist Nick Broomfield (Aileen: Portrait of a Serial Killer), and visual effects specialist Dennis Lowe (Cold Mountain, The English Patient) were among their number.

In 1982, the School changed its name to The National Film and Television School, reflecting the fact that many of its graduates went on to make their careers in TV. That same year it launched a pilot project for re-training freelance industry professionals. Financed by a one-off grant from the Eady fund, this led to the establishment of the National Short Course Training Programme (now ShortCourses@NFTS), which has been running courses ever since on all areas of film and television production.

By the early 1990s, the NFTS had modified its original stance on course structure, deciding to provide specialisation at the time of entry. The first year still offered a general course, followed in the next two years by focused training in one of the ten specialist areas of direction, writing, editing, camera, sound, animation, design, producing, documentary and composing.

The Royal College of Art agreed to validate the School's courses and 2000 saw the first intake of students who would graduate with an MA.

September 2003 saw Nik Powell, one of the UK's leading producers (Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, Calendar Girls), rapidly expanded the programme of new courses, introducing Diplomas in Producing & Directing Television Entertainment (now an MA), Digital Post-Production, SFX/VFX, Directing Fiction, and Script Development, the latter a partnership venture with The Script Factory.

Today, the NFTS has some 160 full-time students, another two dozen part-timers on the Script Development course and around a thousand a year on its short courses. The only UK film school with its own film and television studios, and post-production facilities rivalling those of professional companies, its talented community of students makes around a hundred films a year on courses that are still over 90% practical and unlike anything offered at any other UK film school, says the school's website.

http://www.nftsfilm-tv.ac.uk/