FilmEU Student Challenge took students to film sets in Ireland, Slovakia, and Estonia
From February 23 to 27, nine international teams filmed their short films, three of them in Estonia. This year’s theme of the FilmEU Student Challenge is "Community – Exploring the We", with the golden rule that no one is left behind in the working process.
,,The production process is an extremely valuable and exciting stage, where the quality and results of each team member’s preparation are reflected quite mercilessly,” said Katrin Sigijane, BFM’s project manager of the FilmEU Student Challenge, who is also mentoring one of the film teams.
Each team consists of 6–7 international students, with one camera per team and a budget of €500. The short film must be 1–5 minutes long, and this year’s genre is fiction.
Group 5 in Tallinn, Estonia. Photo by Sofiia Kordik.
According to Sigijane, BFM is participating in the FilmEU Student Challenge for the fourth time. "It provides a practical view of the real production field, where, alongside their professional skills, students can practice different tasks and important general competencies – entrepreneurial thinking, problem-solving, both self- and talent-management, intercultural teamwork, digital skills, and, of course, creativity and storytelling,” Sigijane explained.
The FilmEU Student Challenge is a six-month program designed to give undergraduate students additional international experience in short film production, from pre-production to post-production. This year’s challenge began in October 2025 at VIA University in Denmark, where students from four universities met their teammates, participated in inspiration workshops, and exchanged ideas. Preparations for the production week were carried out online.
The short films will premiere on April 24 at all participating production schools, and the 2025/26 challenge concludes in May.
Group 3 in Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Elina Akulyan.
This year, four schools participated: Baltic Film, Media and Arts School at Tallinn University, VIA University in Denmark, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) in Ireland, and The Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU) in Bratislava, Slovakia. Next year, for the first time, all eight FilmEU universities will participate simultaneously.
