Appli­ca­tion

Appli­ca­tion Peri­od for the 2027/​28 Aca­d­e­m­ic Year

• 23 Sep­tem­ber 2026: Appli­ca­tion tasks pub­lished on the web­site. Appli­cants can reg­is­ter and begin fill­ing in their appli­ca­tion online.
• 24 Novem­ber 2026, 6:00 pm: Reg­is­tra­tion dead­line for the appli­ca­tion por­tal. With­out reg­is­tra­tion by this date, no appli­ca­tion can be sub­mit­ted.
• 8 Decem­ber 2026, 6:00 pm: Dead­line for appli­ca­tion doc­u­ments. Late sub­mis­sions can­not be accept­ed.
• January/​February 2027: Admis­sions com­mit­tee informs appli­cants of the pre­s­e­lec­tion deci­sion and invites short­list­ed can­di­dates to the entrance exam for Edit­ing & Sound, Screen­writ­ing, Pro­duc­ing, and Cin­e­matog­ra­phy.
• Ear­ly March 2027: Admis­sions com­mit­tee informs appli­cants of the pre­s­e­lec­tion deci­sion and invites short­list­ed can­di­dates to the entrance exam for Direct­ing.
• March 2027: Entrance exams for Edit­ing & Sound, and Screen­writ­ing, held on-site at DFFB.
• April 2027: Entrance exams for Pro­duc­ing, Direct­ing, and Cin­e­matog­ra­phy, held on-site at DFFB.

The can­di­dates are informed in advance of the pre­cise dates and struc­ture of the exam­i­na­tion week.

Appli­ca­tion Process

To enrol in stud­ies at the DFFB, can­di­dates must go through a com­pre­hen­sive appli­ca­tion process:  Stu­dents first sub­mit an appli­ca­tion and port­fo­lio. The DFFB then selects a small pro­por­tion of appli­cants and invites them to attend a one-week entrance exam­i­na­tion at the acad­e­my. This exam­i­na­tion is over­seen by an exam­i­na­tion board.

How to Apply

Appli­ca­tions are accept­ed every year via a process that begins in autumn for the fol­low­ing year.

• The academy’s online appli­ca­tion process is divid­ed by study spe­cial­i­sa­tion.
• To apply to a spe­cial­i­sa­tion, stu­dents must sub­mit pho­tos, film exer­cis­es, texts, images and oth­er mate­ri­als.
• After this sub­mis­sion, the exam­i­na­tion board selects a small num­ber of can­di­dates to take the entrance exam­i­na­tion at the DFFB dur­ing spring.
• The entrance exam­i­na­tion includes oral, writ­ten and prac­ti­cal ele­ments. These ele­ments are intend­ed to iden­ti­fy an applicant’s poten­tial as well as their prac­ti­cal, col­lab­o­ra­tive, and cre­ative abil­i­ties.
• At the end of the exam­i­na­tion process, a new class is select­ed to join the DFFB for the fol­low­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year.
• Every year, 6–10 stu­dents from Ger­many and abroad are admit­ted into each spe­cial­i­sa­tion.
• Admis­sion to the pro­gramme depends sole­ly on suc­cess­ful­ly pass­ing the entrance exam­i­na­tions.

Fur­ther Require­ments

Appli­cants should be at least 21 years old at the begin­ning of their stud­ies.

Prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence or aca­d­e­m­ic degrees in relat­ed fields are not required, but increase the chance of admis­sion.

A can­di­date can­not apply more than twice for admis­sion to the DFFB.

Lan­guage skills

• Please note that good writ­ten and spo­ken Ger­man is required to study at the DFFB.
• Inter­na­tion­al appli­cants must prove their Ger­man lan­guage skills in the form of the Goethe Cer­tifi­cate B2 (or equiv­a­lent), which must be pre­sent­ed at the start of their stud­ies in autumn.
• The writ­ten appli­ca­tion may be sub­mit­ted in Eng­lish and the oral/​practical exam­i­na­tion may be con­duct­ed in Eng­lish, if a can­di­date’s Ger­man lan­guage skills are insuf­fi­cient at this time.
• Good writ­ten and spo­ken Eng­lish-lan­guage skills are required for all can­di­dates. Eng­lish is the sec­ond lan­guage of the DFFB, and a num­ber of sem­i­nars are taught in Eng­lish by inter­na­tion­al teach­ers.

Study Fees

• For enroll­men­t/re-reg­is­tra­tion and equip­ment insur­ance, DFFB charges a fee of €225 per aca­d­e­m­ic year, plus the cost of pur­chas­ing a Deutsch­land-Semes­tertick­et (par­tic­i­pa­tion in Ger­man region­al pub­lic trans­port) for the first four aca­d­e­m­ic years, cur­rent­ly €226.80 per semes­ter.