Film - Hybrid & Non-Fiction

From Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité to docu-fiction and animated documentaries, through participatory formats and impact producing, all the way to mockumentaries, docutainment, and docufictional short films—the MA in Film Hybrid & Non-Fiction focuses, both in content and form, on hybrid and nonfiction audiovisual formats and genres.

This also involves exploring applied short-form formats such as Climate Clips, Social Spots, and Branded Documentaries, as well as non-fictional and hybrid storytelling in the expanded media and digital landscape, and an explicit technical openness to hybrid production processes.

Hybrid: A mixed genre that combines elements of at least two genres into a distinct form, blurring the boundaries between them. In this process, documentary and fictional cinematic forms and techniques converge from both sides.

In a media-dominated present, in which the boundaries between documented reality, staged scenes, and artificially created visual worlds are increasingly blurring, questions of authenticity, truthfulness, credibility, and media responsibility are becoming more important than ever.

Hybrid film formats have greatly enriched the cinematic canon of recent decades and have repeatedly caused a stir by breaking with conventional viewing habits and challenging viewers to engage actively with the material. These cinematic boundary-crossers hold enormous creative potential and immense sociopolitical relevance. Hybrid forms question the supposed unambiguity of cinematic images and constructions of reality. The relationship between reality and its representation can thus itself become the subject of cinematic creation. The non-fictional realm is in a state of constant flux and yet—caught between “fake news” and AI-generated images—continues to embody a concept of authenticity.

The study program views these interconnections as the starting point for an artistic and creative exploration. The focus is on non-fictional and hybrid cinematic forms. Documentary observation, staging, reenactment, essay film, animation, participatory approaches, and experimental methods, etc., are not understood as mutually exclusive categories, but rather as an open field of cinematic possibilities. The study program encourages students to question familiar narrative styles, adopt new perspectives, and experiment with cinematic forms. The aim is not merely to tell stories, but also to make the conditions of their narration visible and open to reflection, and to take responsibility for one’s own images. At the heart of the study program is the development of an independent cinematic stance as a hybrid and nonfiction practice: the ability to perceive social developments, question discourses, and address and reflect on them in cinematic form.

You will acquire all the fundamental theoretical, methodological, and practical skills you need to develop, finance, and produce non-fictional and hybrid film formats in the professional world. By the end of the program, you will be able to use your media expertise to design and produce coherent non--fictional and hybrid formats on a wide variety of topics—with a solid foundation in dramaturgy, design, and economics—tailored to the target audience, and to respond flexibly to the constantly changing demands of a disruptive, highly dynamic market.

The study program offers opportunities for non-fictional, documentary, and hybrid research— across all film disciplines—as well as for developing individual artistic styles and experimenting with new forms of audiovisual expression.

At the same time, it is consistently project- and practice-oriented.

The three-semester study program “Film Hybrid & Non-Fiction” provides students with a practical focus on all major areas of filmmaking, equipping them with systematic and in-depth expertise in the conception, reception, financing, production, and evaluation of audiovisual non-fictional and hybrid film formats, and covers a broad, practice- and application-oriented range of professionally qualifying skills in all relevant areas of the film production process.

The project- and practice-oriented approach aligns with the educational structure of the Faculty of Design, which is based on the transfer of knowledge and skills through theory and applied practice.

Producing film projects with sustainability in mind becomes second nature.

Upon completion of the “MA Film Hybrid & Non-Fiction” program, a wide range of career opportunities will be open to you.

Through this practice-oriented program, you’ll develop key methodological and theoretical skills and build a portfolio that will enable you to launch your career in the following industries or fields, for example:

• Film & media industry
• Advertising and communications agencies
• Marketing / Social Media / Corporate Communications
• Creator Economy
• Games industry
• Media Installations and Audiovisual Scenography
• Educational and Research Institutions
• Schools and Colleges
• Media Education
• Curation
• Government Agencies and Public Service

The Master's degree is the basis for a doctorate. Graduates who wish to gain further academic qualifications have the opportunity to study for a doctorate at a university. This is possible via a cooperative doctorate, in which the university of applied sciences is a cooperation partner of a university.