“It’s a great place, the school as well as the country” – Juan Albarran started studies at IFS this fall

Since august this year the Icelandic Film School has been running an international department. The school  plans to continue this work next year and enroll new students for january 2017. We were curious to know how students that started with us his fall are getting along with their studies and life in Iceland.

I wish I could come up with an amazing and intriguing story, but the way it happened is I had an interest in Iceland for some time, and I wanted to study film. Whenever one puts “film school” and “Iceland” in a google search, it will take you to IFS.

says Juan Albarran when asked about how he came across moving to Iceland to take up studies at IFS this year.

So I came across it this way, applied, and had an interview through Skype. I eventually got accepted, which made me ecstatic, and here I am now!

he adds. Albarran says he has not really had any film education beforehand.

IFS is my first experience with film education. I’d read a couple of books that cover the basic principles, I worked at Panama’s  International Film Festival (which is where I lived before Iceland), and of course watched as many films as I could to learn more about the art form, but other than that IFS is my first formal education in filmmaking.

And after living here in Iceland for almostt two months – how are things coming along at school?

So far extremely well. The weather can be challenging, of course, the windstorms crazy (you’d think you’ll become a kite at some point), and winter hasn’t even properly started yet, but I’ve enjoyed Iceland more than I ever thought I would. And I had big expectations. The school has been great, we’ve already finished our first minute films and are now working on our thesis project for this semester. Everyone I’ve met has been awesome, there’s a lot of ways to learn, have fun, and do stuff. It’s a great place, the school as well as the country.

He is taken by Icelandic nature and finds it an inspiration.

I would say some of the perks that come to mind studying in Iceland are the country itself, having such beautiful and inspiring landscapes all around you, being a small school with small classes, which means that teachers and students can interact more during class, watching films on fridays at Bio Paradis (local art cinema), having so many projects to work on, great teachers, awesome students, and last but not least: beer nights. Beer nights are great.

Albarran expects to be able to start his career in the film world right after graduation.

 I expect to be able to work with others in a productive and friendly manner, and develop concrete ideas of how to make a film from the first glimpse of creative thought to the moment it is premiered on the big screen. I think the importance of film school is to make sure you enter the industry just with enough experience and knowledge to stand out even just a little bit, to demonstrate through your work that once you step out of school, you know what you’re doing, not just grabbing a camera, or light or sound equipment for the first time. And that you know the theory as well, not just the practical side of filmmaking. It is a place to make mistakes and learn, to screw up and become better each time and receive feedback from other beginner filmmakers and professionals in the industry alike. Film school is a filmmaker’s boot camp. It’s harder to win the battle if you haven’t trained first.