The NFS's 10th jubilee celebration started on Tuesday at Lillehammer University College - which houses the film school - with master-classes by US script specialist Dick Ross, UK sound editor Larry Sider (Simon Magnus), Icelandic editor Valdis Oskarsdottir (Festen) and UK producer Nik Powell, head of London's National Film & TV School.
To illustrate the importance of the school has as a breeding ground for rising Norwegian talents, several successful debut films by past graduates were shown at the school's cinema, such as Kissed by Winter by Sarah Johnsen, Tommy's Inferno by Ove Raymond Gyldenås, Cold Prey by Roar Uthaug, Sons by Erik Richter Strand, This is The Song You Need by Tore Rygh, and Winterland by Hisham Zaman.
Founded in 1997, the NFS offers a three-year programme combining theory and practice in seven film disciplines: scriptwriting, directing, production, editing, cinematography, sound and production design. According to Swedish producer Anne Ingvar, who heads NFS's Production course, the school acts as an interface with the local and international film community, using film professionals as lecturers and sending students out on the ground on internships or to film festivals such as Göteborg, Berlin or Cannes. The NFS also organises seminars with other Nordic film schools to establish a network of contacts for all film and TV students within the Nordic region.
Over the past decade, some 150 students have graduated from the NFS, and during the last three-four years, many Norwegian films have been made by teams of past NFS graduates who now work together within the industry. "The school's strength is that it promotes filmmaking as a collective work between directors/scriptwriters/producers and between directors/cinematographers for example, and most graduates who come out of the school continue to collaborate afterwards, "stressed Jan Erik Holst, director of the International Department of the Norwegian Film Institute.
"I had a great experience at the school and I've ended up working with a lot of the people I met there," added producer Eric Vogel (Tordenfilm), an ex NFS graduate who made Sons with school friends Erik Richter Strand and scriptwriter Thomas Seeberg Torjussen. "An important part of the curriculum was establishing a common language on how to discuss film and filmmaking amongst us students, regardless of our chosen specialties of writing, directing, producing etc... This worked very well. It was also great to meet professionals from various parts of the Nordic industry, who were our teachers. This was an important preparation for entering the industry ourselves."
"Former students have integrated very well into the industry, and the amount of work that they've done collectively and that has reached an audience is quite impressive. So I think it's safe to say that the school has been very important in shaping up the current industry," he concluded.