Introduction: More than film school: Why the full spectrum of practice-based film education warrants attention

Adapting Simone de Beauvoir’s well-known phrase, one is not born a filmmaker, but becomes one.¹ To ask about the nature of practice-based film education as it has emerged around the globe and exists today is to begin to understand how filmmakers become filmmakers. Inquiry along these lines sheds light on the process of becoming not only a filmmaker, but also a particular kind of filmmaker, where “kind” encompasses skills, as well as narrative and aesthetic priorities, preferred modes of practice, and understandings of what the ideal roles and contributions of film would be. Copyright © 2013 Mette Hjort.