In 1978, with the appointment of the legendary experimental film-maker Peter Kubelka, Frankfurt was favoured with the first film department at an academy that taught the entire spectrum of film production. Over the course of the years the film class of the Städelschule advanced to become an institution of repute in the experimental field of films.
Even today a chair of "Free film art", as initiated and supervised for 20 years by Kubelka, remains an exception in a media scene that otherwise concentrates on occupational training for the many functions in commercial cinema and television. "I do not train young people for television or film, but, like painting or sculpture, in free art without any fixed occupational perspectives", is how Kubelka described the course, a concept which was also retained by his successor, the film-maker Monika Schwitte. The expression of personal thinking via film is the teaching objective - film is taught fundamentally as a new language, on par with music or architecture.
The film course also includes obligatory lectures on the themes art history, painting technique, philosophy and art history and freehand drawing.
New students are accepted always during the winter semester. Acceptance is decided by a committee in the scope of an entrance examination.