Deirdre O’Toole
The Pathfinder Joint International BA in Film – A European Model for Collaborative Film Education
The Pathfinder Joint International BA in Film is a pioneering joint degree designed by the eight partner institutions of the FilmEU Alliance — seven of which are CILECT schools. It is currently delivered by four institutions: IADT (Ireland), Lusófona University (Portugal), LUCA School of Arts (Belgium), and NATFA (Bulgaria), with two associate partners, VŠMU (Slovakia) and LMTA (Lithuania). The other designing partners are BFM (Estonia) and VIA University College (Denmark).
Pathfinder offers students a fully transnational filmmaking education, combining creative practice, critical inquiry, sustainability, and artistic research. Students study across multiple European contexts, engaging with diverse cinematic traditions, hybrid teaching, and collaborative international productions.
This talk explores how Pathfinder was co-created and is jointly delivered across multiple institutions, addressing the pedagogical, administrative, and cultural challenges of designing a shared European degree. It demonstrates how harmonised assessment, joint governance, and collaborative curriculum design contribute to FilmEU’s wider ambition — to establish a European University for Film and Media Arts that fosters innovation, inclusivity, and cross-border collaboration. Pathfinder represents a new step in European film education — blending hybrid and on-campus learning to shape the next generation of globally minded filmmakers.
Dr. Deirdre O’Toole teaches at the National Film School, IADT, and is its Academic Coordinator for FilmEU as well as the coordinator of Pathfinder International Joint BA in Film. A filmmaker and cinematographer, Deirdre has worked extensively across documentary, drama, and music video production and has screened her work worldwide in galleries, film festivals, and broadcasts. She holds a practice-based PhD in Film and Visual Studies from Queen’s University Belfast, where she explored trauma and storytelling through documentary filmmaking. She lectures across multiple programs at IADT, at BA and MA level including Erasmus+ programmes bridging creative practice with critical research.