Hi Lea-L,

Film at the HfbK is pretty hard to get into. I tried in 2015 and 2016 and got rejected both times. 1 of my fellow students from the HCU got accepted there and I know about 3-4 people who are currently studying Film the HfbK. They focus mostly on documentary and essay and experimental genres. The HfbK has a Studienberatung once per month and you can go there with your portfolio and show them what you have and get feedback or go without a portfolio and see what your competitors are doing. Each month a different professor from the HfbK manages the Studienberatung. I went to about 4 of them and got to meet all the professors. There is an unspoken rule at the HfbK when it comes to applicants. They don't take students over the age of 35. I will be soon 46. They do very much work via networking and I met one guy who got in purely because he had a rapport with one of the professors. I am pretty sure I was rejected because Udo Engel didn't like me when I was in his Studienberatung because every single one of the 9 students in that last Studienberatung before the deadline was accpeted except for me. That is mostly my experience with the HfbK in Hamburg. Students graduating from the HfbK are more likely to be successful getting money from the Filmförderung. But students graduating from the HfbK are usually rejected for jobs because they don't learn proper ways to edit or work with cameras. Most film companies prefer to hire students from the HAW who learn all the technical sides. Students from the HfbK end up making their own films or becoming directors, but are usually not trusted to be DoP or anything like that. Behind the HfbK is the HAW and the Miami Film School and the Hamburg Media School all doing more commercial / Hollywood stuff. Hamburg Media School is Masters only. Miami I think is focused mostly on advertisements. HAW: Photography and DoP. 

The only thing I know about the content is that in the first semester you learn to shoot on real 35mm film in black and white with no sound track. It gets sent off to be developed and digitized and you can choose to edit the film the old-fashioned analog way or edit digitally. That and I know they watch a whole lot of films. 

And even if Wim Wenders still appears as a professor for film on the HfbK website, he doesn't actually teach anymore and is retiring. I think they keep him on the roster so the school looks good on paper.

Sorry I wrote in English, but hope it helps. 

If you can make it here for the Jahresausstellung 8. February - 10. February you will be able to see in real life what the school looks like, what films they produced and get a feel for the school.

They are quite elitist and the habitus of the people studying there: they keep a lot of secrets and don't really talk about the things they are working on. Seems to be a HfbK thing to be so secretive, so I don't fit in there at all.

Hi Lea,

ich habe mich dieses Jahr auch für den Studienschwerpunkt Film beworben :) Weißt du mittlerweile schon, ob du dich bewerben wirst? Hast du deine Bewerbung eventuell sogar schon abgeschickt? 

Ganz liebe Grüße