MFA in Independent Film & Digital Imaging

Governors State’s Master of Fine Arts in Independent Film and Digital Imaging (IFDI) facilitates the development of your voice as a professional filmmaker or photographer, helping you to reach your academic, creative, and professional goals. The IFDI MFA program is dedicated to internationally-recognized films and photography that draw on evolving technology to celebrate diverse visions, especially those currently underrepresented in film and the photographic arts.

The MFA-IFDI is centered on authorship. We guide each of our students through all the creative processes of photography and film. Our filmmakers are engaged in individual and small crew development, production, post, and delivery - we want you to focus on conceiving your thesis from the very beginning, so that your coursework dovetails in the writing, directing, and producing of a beautiful documentary or drama. Our photographers are working on techniques and aesthetics that will lead to a celebration of their work in a gallery exhibition. Our class sizes are capped at 12 and we maintain a strong emphasis on getting to know and nurture the development of each student on an individual basis. Our students range in age from their 20s to their 70s, but the majority are mid-career and looking for the opportunity to blossom in creative ways that they have never experienced before.

The MFA-IFDI has graduated accomplished filmmakers such as Seth McClellan and Mercedes Kane, and its students have been involved in the making of films like Chicago Heights, named to Roger Ebert’s last list of Best Art Films, and Hogtown, a New York Times Critics' Pick that the Chicago Sun-Times called "the most original film made about Chicago in Chicago to date." Several of GSU’s students with academic ambitions have gone on to tenure track positions at regional and national colleges, including McClellan, Pamela Planera, and the recently tenured Aaron-Daniel Annas, who is running the film program at SUNY Buffalo State. Others, such as Keisha Dyson and Dirk Fletcher, have gone on to senior administrative careers in Marketing and Communication at Columbia College Chicago and Canon USA. The MFA-IFDI has graduated several talented secondary educators from our program, including three currently serving at our region's highly rated Homewood-Flossmoor High School. Others, such as Jason Knade and Uriah Berryhill, are working in institutional and corporate production. Another, Josh Young, is running GSU's own well regarded Chicago Southland International Film Festival.