The requirements, reviews, and curriculum for CCA's MFA Film program are designed such that graduating students successfully achieve the following program learning outcomes:

Students think broadly about film as a medium, considering narrative and non-narrative modes of making, and different contexts of exhibition, dissemination and dialogue.

Students can apply narrative and storytelling concepts and dynamics effectively when appropriate to critiquing, analyzing and making fiction, non-fiction, and hybrid work.

Students can depart from habitual, traditional, and comfortable modes of thinking and making in a manner that allow for new discoveries, innovation, and the continued growth of their practice.

Students can conceive and create work that exhibits the aesthetic, technical and conceptual sophistication expected of serious film artists.

Students can apply comprehensive knowledge of cinema history and theory to problem-solving and creative decisions in their own work, and in discussing the work of others.

Students can use the tools of cinema, including production and post-production equipment, to experiment with new processes, techniques, and aesthetic possibilities, as well as to perform practice-standard work on their own and others’ projects with acceptable technical facility.

Students can perform research using a variety of methods, with the depth and scope necessary to realize a work to its fullest potential.

Students create work that exhibits a distinctive voice and/or contributes to further development of the moving image and sound arts.