Overview
Please note that applications for the MFA in Film Production are accepted on a biennial basis. Applications for Fall 2026 will open in late September 2025.
Film Production is a major component of Vancouver’s economy, as well as in cities across the globe. UBC has an over 45-year history of training some of Canada’s (and the world’s) brightest filmmakers and technicians. The MFA in Film Production focuses on the areas of directing, screenwriting and producing live action narrative or documentary film for students who already have a comprehensive background in filmmaking and wish to pursue a specific creative or intellectual vision in an academic environment. Our graduate and student work has screened at film festivals across the globe, and graduates have had key roles in films as diverse as District 9, 65 Red_Roses, She's a Boy I Knew and The Editor.
What makes the program unique?
The film industry employs 36,000 people in Vancouver and pumps over $1 billion dollars into the local economy. UBC maintains partnerships and agreements with post-production facilities, rental houses, and professional and union organizations to facilitate student work, education, networking, and post-grad opportunities. Our faculty includes Rachel Talalay, a working director who has film and television credits in the US, the UK and Canada. Furthermore, students have the option to learn from and collaborate with UBC’s top-tier Creative Writing department and Theatre and Film Studies programs.
UBC offers the only Master's Degree in Film Production in Western Canada, and is one of the few MFA Film Production programs in the world to require an undergraduate degree in film production to be considered. Our courses are advanced and small; only 1-2 students are accepted every year out of the 30-40 that apply.
Quick Facts
Research Supervisors
Supervision
Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.
Instructions regarding thesis supervisor contact for this program
Advice and insights from UBC Faculty on reaching out to supervisors
These videos contain some general advice from faculty across UBC on finding and reaching out to a supervisor. They are not program specific.
This list shows faculty members with full supervisory privileges who are affiliated with this program. It is not a comprehensive list of all potential supervisors as faculty from other programs or faculty members without full supervisory privileges can request approvals to supervise graduate students in this program.
- Bourges, Antoine (Film Production; Film Production)
- Brown, William (film-philosophy, digital media, posthumanism, critical race theory)
- Drljaca, Igor (Documentary; Film Production; Screenwriting; Documentary , Film Production, Screenwriting)
- McGowan, Sharon (Planning of film productions from concept to completion)
- Scholte, Tom (Theatre, film, and television)
- Walsh, Shannon (South Africa; Afropessimism & Critical Race Studies; Documentary; Film Production; Indigenous studies; Environmental justice; Affect Theory; South Africa, Afropessimism & Critical Race Studies, Documentary, Film Production, Indigenous Studies, Environmental Justice, Affect Theory)
Intake
Program Enquiries
Contact the program
Supervisor Search
Departments/Programs may update graduate degree program details through the Faculty & Staff portal. To update contact details for application inquiries, please use this form.
Considering Vancouver as your next home?