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THE HURTWOOD FILM ACADEMY

OUR GOALS

• To explore the knowledge, arts, skills, ethics, joy and disciplined work of film making.
• To produce films of substance, meaning, significance and quality as authored by HFA Members.
• To enjoy the process as part of a community of film makers.

OUR APPROACH - A FILM PRODUCTION COMPANY WITHIN A SCHOOL

HFA operates within Hurtwood House, one of England's premier schools for 16 to 19 year olds, specialising in the Liberal Arts with students going on to the major Universities, Film and Theatre Schools of the world.

In HFA's seven years of operation we have had over 120 students work with us, producing over 50 films, shot in the UK, Europe and Asia.

OUR COMMUNITY

Hurtwood Film Academy is a small and dedicated community of Hurtwood students who follow a specialist film making course for one afternoon a week for a year (in addition to their A Levels) with three practising film makers as tutors and mentors. HFA works to six principles:

• As a Film Production Operation, making documentaries and fiction films throughout the UK and world-wide.
• To enable students to originate, develop, shoot and edit a slate of their own films where they are the "author".
• To develop the basic film making skills and awareness in the students, across the technical (camera, sound, lighting, editing) and the production areas (research, writing, directing, producing).
• To get HFA films shown so as to enable student "voices" to be heard.
• To show students the joy of film making and also the sheer hard work involved as they experience and understand the film making process at first hand.
• To provide HFA graduates with an impressive body of work that will take them to the best University departments and Film Schools in the UK and worldwide if they so desire.

OUR ALUMNI

The HFA community and its traditions continue to grow; our commitment to quality film making skills continue to take root. We have over 50 alumni either at or recently graduated from Universities and Film Schools as varied as Bournemouth, Bristol, LCC, Lincoln, Loughborough, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Ravensbourne, Westminster and York in the UK; and Prague, Paris and Sydney; and various eminent film schools in New York and Los Angeles in the USA.

Former HFA members are just beginning to enter the world of work in the media industry, and to make their mark. Our alumni are working for the BBC or various "indies" on television productions in the UK, on movies in Europe, or working for major movie outfits in Hollywood.

"Cheesey I know but it was the best of times at school,

and helped me get into the LA film school where I am just starting my

4 year degree."

(Arden -  HFA Graduate 2009)

"The coolest time of my school life - by far -

though watch out for those sometimes mean tutors!"

(Jean Phillipe - JP - HFA Graduate 2008.)