The National Film and Television School is one of the top film, television and new media schools in the world as evidenced by the Hollywood Reporter placing the NFTS in the top three non-American schools in the world.

HISTORY

The National Film School (as it was first named) opened in 1971, the culmination of a major effort by the Industry and government to create an institution to educate and train talent for the British Film Industry.

In 1970, Colin Young, a Scot then chairing the University of California's Department of Theater Arts, co-founded the NFTS and was appointed as the School's first director. With a loan from Rank, the NFS bought the old Beaconsfield Film Studios in Buckinghamshire - which had been home to organisations as diverse as British Lion Film Corporation, The Crown Film Unit and the North Thames Gas Board - and set about refitting it to professional industry standards. Young established 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.

CONTACT
Switchboard: 01494 671234
Registry: 01494 731425
Short Courses: 01494 677903
Fax: 01494 674042