A highlight of the course for Regent’s Film and Screen Production and Screenwriting and Producing students is our annual trip to the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York. Here, Senior Lecturer Phil Hughes share an insight into how this trip enhances and elevates our students’ experience – and what makes it unique.
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Embedding real-world experience into learning and teaching
Each year, colleagues and second year students from our film and screenwriting courses head to York to immerse themselves in a vibrant marketplace; watching a host of short films and meeting filmmakers from around the world. Aesthetica is an internationally renowned, BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying short film festival, meaning our students have an opportunity to see the very best of the year’s shorts from a brilliantly diverse range of filmmakers before they embark on their own graduation films in their final year of study.
An unmissable opportunity
Our annual trip to Aesthetica is an incredible opportunity open to all our film and screenwriting students as they progress through their degrees. Experiencing a film festival at this level and deepening understanding of the quality of writing and production that we expect them to be able to reach in order to achieve success in the marketplace after they graduate has a real impact on our students’ learning and we have seen real results in the quality of our students' films year on year since we started visiting the Aesthetica festival.
Showcasing the best of Regent’s
We also take the best of our graduation films to the festival each year and mount a Regent’s showcase. This year we had a full house at York’s central City Screen cinema screening a selection of films to a great reaction from the festival crowd – a testament to the incredibly high standard of work produced by our graduating students and the teaching delivered by colleagues across our Film and Production programmes.
Showcasing their work in this way means that Regent’s Film and Screen Production and Screenwriting and Producing students don’t just get the chance to experience the event as festivalgoers, they also get the chance to do so as participants on graduation.
At the heart of our courses is a need to reflect the professional landscape beyond Regent’s and ensure that our students understand the realities of what it means to be a filmmaker today. The insights and inspiration offered by our annual trip to Aesthetica are at the heart of our degree programmes and make up a huge part of this real-world, immersive approach to learning and teaching.
What our students said...
‘Aesthetica was a great experience. It was really valuable to see short films from other industry professionals, especially as this is what we’re working towards ourselves. The trip was also great for networking and having a chance to build stronger connections with my classmates outside of Regent’s.’
Go behind the scenes at Aesthetica on our YouTube channel
Discover Regent's Film Production and Screenwriting undergraduate courses