MetFilm School Student Senate leads first Exchange Trip to Berlin
By Elise Czyzowska
31 March 2023
This year marks 20 years of MetFilm School – and over the years, we’ve seen a lot of firsts. Our first studio location (2005), our first accredited degree (2007), our first international campus (2012), the list goes on… However, there’s always space for something new, and that’s exactly what happened this month, with the first ever Student Senate Exchange Trip.
Organised by our students, led by the hard work of our Student Senate, nineteen BA & MA students from our London and Leeds campuses travelled to Germany to visit our Berlin campus, perfectly timed to lend a hand with filming the fourth season of Benita Bailey’s show, YELL IT From The Mountain.
‘I loved having the students from London and Leeds over as guests at the Berlin campus’, said Robert Lehniger, Principal of MetFilm School Berlin. ‘With the exciting industry guests during the YELL IT show, it was a lively exchange, and a great example of the networking opportunities our three-campus School provides.’
Exploring Berlin
Arriving in Berlin on Thursday 23 March, our London and Leeds students jumped straight into life in the city. While half of the group took in the pleasantries of Nikolai Kirche courtyard, the others took in a niche area of the country’s history at Germany’s Spy Museum, all before coming back together for an all-campus mixer at Das Lemke Bar.
On the Friday, Student Senate Vice President for Berlin, Maeve Coffey, led our students on a photo walk of Mitte, planning a route which included Alexander Platz, Checkpoint Charlie, and the Brandenburg Gate. Across the rest of the weekend, our students also found time to visit the likes of…
- The Deutsche Kinematick Museum
- Tempelhof Feld
- Mauerpark Market
- The Museum for Photography
- The German Bundenstag
In between these sight-seeing opportunities, our students returned to the Berlin campus to help shoot the upcoming episodes from Benita Bailey’s YELL IT…
YELLIT From The Mountain
Created in 2020, BA Screen Acting tutor Benita Bailey’s show, YELL IT From The Mountain, features Black artists from the performing arts industry in conversation with Benita. The fourth season of the show, which is co-produced by MetFilm School, is also kindly sponsored by ‘Power of the Arts’ by Philip Morris.
While our students were in town, they were able to get involved with the production of the show, as well as listen in and add their questions to the interviews taking place. A particularly poignant session was the first of the set, when on Friday evening, our own BA Practical Filmmaking graduate, Tunde Aladese, sat down with Benita to talk about her career in the industry.
The first studio recording of Yell it with MetFilm School has been a huge success – I’ve received responses on social media from all over the world, congratulating us on the looks of the show, and the great line-up of guests.
Tunde Aladese was among the talk show guests, and spoke about how her time at MetFilm School served her on set, as one of the writers of the new Netflix series ‘Transatlantic’ – which premiered the day of our interview!
Other episodes feature guests including Nataly Kudiabor, Sheri Hagen, and Fatima York – keep an eye out on our socials for the launch date of season four, and read our recent blog with Benita to learn more about the project.
The MetFilm School Community
Amongst the planned tourist activities, our London and Leeds students were also given a tour of the Berlin facilities, based at BUFA Studios. Alongside filming YELL IT, this seemed to be a standout from the trip – offering our students the chance to expand their filmmaking networks on an international scale. As Sharaj Mirpuri (Student Senate Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Officer), said of the trip, ‘it was especially inspiring to talk with Berlin students about their plans after they graduate, and to consider how the film industry in Europe works in comparison to the UK’.
The exchange trip has delivered on all the fronts that MetFilm School stands for: diversity, equal opportunity, and collaboration.
Meeting students from different campuses, backgrounds, and courses was an experience that is going to stay with us students forever, and our teachings from the trip are something no classroom could have ever imparted!
A group of our Berlin students will be rounding off this Exchange Trip later in May, when they come to visit our London campus, based at Ealing Studios. With the connections and friendships they’ve made over the last weekend, we’re sure it’ll be a trip to remember.
- A huge thank you to our Student Senate for helping to organise this trip.
- Want to visit MetFilm School Berlin for yourself? Join us at our upcoming Open Day, Saturday 6 May at 11am CET.
- Keep an eye out for the Berlin leg of our Exchange Trip, happening this May!
