Learning and Teaching Day 2013

Teaching Award: Documentary Filmmaking

  • Pratap Rughani: Course Director MA Documentary Film, LCC

Brief description of session and activities

Pratap is a documentary film maker and Course Director of MA Documentary Film at London College of Communication. Pratap has developed the course in order to facilitate an excellent student experience integrating professional practice, industry links and a critical approach to documentary culture, developed to work with diverse students.

The MA Documentary Film team utilise extensive industry contacts and practice, including BAFTA, BFI, BBC, Festival & Gallery networks to draw in leading practitioners, thinkers and documentary commissioners and has held live pitching events at LCC. Students are encouraged to contextualise experience so they can engage with industry norms and cultivate a critical perspective on the limits of such norms.

His research interests in documentary ethics develop a distinctive research edge which engage students with current crises in media ethics. There have been many student successes as a result including:

  1. Several MA Films have gone on to success in international film festival contexts, including: IDFA; Toronto Film Festival; Berlin Short Film Festival; Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival; London Int’l Film Festival; Open City Film Festival and many others.
  2. Commissions from major UK broadcasters - e.g. BBC TV documentaries.
  3. Documentary film awards & nominations such as the highly prized are the Grierson awards.