Special Programs

Paris Experimental Production Workshop

Channel your inner Godard or Truffaut and break the rules of conventional filmmaking. Create original, experimental works while living in the City of Lights.

One of the most captivating cities in Europe, Paris retains its timeless legacy as an artistic, intellectual, and literary pacesetter. The Eiffel Tower, symbol of the city, dominates the skyline. North of the Seine, the Right Bank is home to monumental buildings, grand boulevards, and major museums, including the Louvre and the Centre Pompidou. The Left Bank (rive gauche) invokes a Bohemian and intellectual atmosphere with its university communities, cafés, restaurants, jazz clubs, and chic boutiques. NYU Paris is located in the Latin Quarter, the thriving historic and intellectual heart of Paris where students have the opportunity to benefit from the numerous cultural, artistic, and academic institutions of this celebrated neighborhood.

Program Overview

In this program you will become familiar with the unfamiliar. As you screen avant-garde films from some of the greatest French experimental filmmakers, you will learn the language of French experimental cinema. You will understand how the filmmakers have challenged conventions and then bring those techniques into your own films.

Field trips include visits to le Musee de Louvre, Jeu de Paume Museum, Musee d'Orsay and the Cinematheque Francais, as well as contemporary video art galleries.  

"Without making an experimental film, I think I wouldn't have expanded my conceptualization of story as much as I have now." 

— Saunder Boyle, Experimental Production Workshop,
summer 2018

Curriculum

Students will enroll in the following two courses for a total of 7 units.

Please Note: Students studying abroad on a Tisch track are not eligible to pursue an internship (except for Theatre in Ghana and Television Writing in London). Tisch programs do not provide work visas.

INTERMEDIATE EXPERIMENTAL WORKSHOP

IFMTV-UT 1049 | 4 units | Instructor: Darrell Wilson

A production course in which students experiment with non-narrative approaches to content, structure, technique, and style. Themes and orientations include many possibilities, such as music, choreography, visual or audio art, investigations of rhythm, color, shape, and line; poetry, fragmentation and collage, abstraction, performance; and subversion of linear narrative and documentary conventions. Working in groups of four, you will direct and edit one performance-based project shot on location, and direct, edit and sound design one final proposed video. (Prospective students who wish to direct films are encouraged to obtain a list of proposal guidelines for each section from the professor before the semester begins.) Note: Films produced for this Intermediate Experimental Workshop will be eligible for the New Visions + Voices: Intermediate Film Festival. 

Note: Students should bring their own laptops and can access their Adobe Creative Cloud via their NYU Net ID.

Note for NYU Tisch Undergraduate Film and Television Majors: The maximum length for an intermediate film to be eligible for NYU Tisch Film festivals is 8 minutes.

MEDIA MAVERICKS: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF FILM AND VIDEO

IFMTV-UT 1002 | 3 Units| Instructor: Darrell Wilson

This class is a critical examination of experimental film and video with and emphasis on makers in France. There are no criteria for an avant-garde film or video, only the expectation that by watching it a viewer will be introduced to a challenging, refreshingly unfamiliar language that, by the end of the piece, he or she will have begun to speak. This new language many be politically confrontational, aesthetically difficult, lyrical, or rhythmical, but no matter what the form, it will express the particular vision of the artist who produced it. Challenging as this work may be for any audience, a close viewing of these “avant-garde” pieces will expand on your appreciation of their poetry and complexity. Whether you call these films experimental, alternative, independent, personal or poetic, they share very little save for their adventurous desire to reawaken those dormant visual and aural sensibilities that may have been hypnotized into years of sleep by too much commercial, mainstream media.

Watch

Florence, Italy

Tisch Special Programs - Study Abroad

Program Dates

Summer 2026

Student Arrival: Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Student Departure: Thursday, August 13, 2026

Admissions

Summer 2026

Application Deadline: February 23, 2026

Prerequisites:

  • Tisch Film Majors: Sight & Sound: Film (FMTV-UT 43) and Sight & Sound: Studio (FMTV-UT 51) or Sight & Sound: Documentary (FMTV-UT 80), Production Safety & Set Protocol
    (FMTV-UT 101). No exceptions will be made for the prerequisites. Prerequisites will not be waived.

  • NYU Non-film majors: One Sight and Sound course, Fundamentals of Filmmaking I (OART-UT 560), or Fundamentals of Documentary Filmmaking I (OART-UT 580)

  • Visiting Students: College Level Experience in Film Production

Application: Please read the following application requirements before starting your application.

Students who are currently on a study visa or have a question about applying for a visa to this location, should be in contact with the Office of Global Services regarding their visa needs and the process. 

Note: Students should wait to receive their admissions notification and confirmation that the program is running prior to purchasing airline tickets. Students accepted to the program should purchase refundable airline tickets and/or travel insurance in the event the program is canceled or program dates are changed due to world events. It is strongly recommended that students purchase insurance for trip cancellation, flight cancellation, luggage loss or damage, as well as medical and accident coverage.

Expenses

Summer 2026

  • Undergraduate Summer 2026 Tuition: $15,015
  • Program Fee: $730
  • Lab fee: $677
  • Housing:
        Single (Cité): $3,053
  • CSI Insurance is approximately $160
  • Students are responsible for arranging their own transportation to/from the program.

For the length of the program, students will be enrolled in GeoBlue Health Insurance. Students traveling beyond the dates of the program are encouraged to enroll themselves in GeoBlue Health Insurance. 

Visit the NYU Office of the Bursar for additional information on tuition and fees.

Apply

Scholarship and Financial Aid

There are opportunities for financial assistance to study abroad.

Please review the Scholarships and Financial Aid for Study Abroad page for more information.

Housing

Housing for this program is mandatory. Please note: Your choice of room preference or residence hall preference (if available) is not guaranteed. None of the NYU Paris housing options are air-conditioned.

Visit the NYU Paris website for housing options and descriptions.