While many countries around the world have established film schools as they noticed the importance of film media as an industry, this matter has not been given sufficient consideration here in Japan for various reasons. It is a well-known fact that the establishment and promotion of film schools over the past few decades has produced a new era of world-class Asian talent.
The Graduate School of Film and New Media is an autonomous graduate school without an undergraduate faculty, offering masters and doctoral programs. The School began as the Department of Film Production in 2005, before the Department of New Media and the Doctoral Program in Film and New Media Studies was established, with the addition of the Department of Animation in 2008.
Film production is a form of artistic endeavor that constructs stories from images rather than words, functioning as the narrative for these stories. It is a medium for telling stories that transcends language barriers. In its capacity as storyteller, film is often compared to literature, but this medium of visuals has a greater capacity to convey thoughts and ideas than words alone to a wider audience.
Animation is generally regarded as an extension of pictorial art. However, it is important to understand that animation, which can capture the process of time passing, is considerably different to pictorial art, the existence of which rests within its motionless state.
There is a constant danger that the world of expression through film media becomes enslaved by the rapidly evolving media technology supporting it and loses sight of the fundamental beauty of storytelling and artistic expression. The Japanese word “bunka,” which refers to being educated and having the ability to read and write, is a translation of the English term “culture”. Moreover, as we can see from the existence of words such as “agriculture,” the meaning of the term “culture” contains the notion of “cultivation.” Therefore, it is fair to say that art culture plays an important role of cultivating the society, so to speak.
The essential quality of artistic expression lies in our innate desire to resist loneliness and isolation. Communication may be interpreted as the sharing of loneliness with others and a dissipation of isolation. To nurture outstanding artists is to encourage those interpreting and challenging this loneliness and instill in them the confidence required to sublimate it into artistic expression. In this sense, it is our wish that students at the Graduate School cultivate themselves by exploring the depths of human nature through expression. We hold, as our ideal, the transference of individual artistic expression to society, via new forms of media.
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Name of degree conferred
Master’s Program–Master (Film)
Doctoral Program–Doctor (Film and New Media)
Graduate School of Film and New media WEB Site