Film school to open a new city campus

MetFilm School, a private film school based at London’s world-famous Ealing Studios, is launching a campus in Leeds this autumn.

Based at Prime Studios, in Kirkstall Road, the school’s new Leeds campus will offer five undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

These will include Acting for Screen, Content, Media & Film Production, Cinematography, Directing and Screenwriting.

Jonny Persey, director at MetFilm School said: “Yorkshire’s Film and TV sector is thriving, and we want to ensure it has a dynamic, talented, and diverse workforce to meet all its needs.

“On MetFilm School courses, students learn by doing, participating in workshops, working within the industry, attending Masterclasses and turning their knowledge into practical experience. All our courses are taught by award-winning professionals who are actually working in the industry.

“We are so proud to be launching MetFilm School Leeds. It has long been an ambition of the school to open a campus in a second UK city.

“Our strategic decision making since the school’s inception some 18 years ago has been driven by a desire to make the unique education that we offer available to more people.

“That’s why we started running undergraduate programmes and later postgraduate programmes, and it’s why we opened in Berlin, Germany. And it is also why we are opening now in Leeds.

“Digital technologies in production and distribution, the subsequent emergence of the streamers, and the continued growth and support of the creative sector, have all made the film and TV sector across the UK ever hungrier for talented people in front and behind the camera.

“We are proud to do our bit in educating and supporting that talent and in turn in supporting the industry.”

One production which recognised the value of shooting in Leeds was MetFilm School tutor’s Prano Bailey-Bond’s film, Censor, also exec-produced by another MetFilm School tutor, Naomi Wright, which released in UK cinemas in August.

This commercial interest in the production sector in Leeds is supported by Screen Yorkshire and Leeds City Council, who are putting significant resource into supporting the sector.

Like the specialist school’s London and Berlin campuses, MetFilm School’s newest campus is situated in a working film studio complex – Prime Studios, which plays host to professional film and television productions on an ongoing basis.

It is also next door to ITV Studios, the home of its flagship soap Emmerdale Farm, one of whose current directors is MetFilm School tutor, Emma Lindley.

Persey added: “We’re grateful for the welcome the industry is already showing us and look forward to working in this exciting space over the coming years and contributing to developments in film and TV which promise to offer careers, work, and in turn fantastic entertainment to so many.”