DocStudentHub

DocStudentHub Astra Film Festival 2026

The third edition of DocStudent Hub brings film students from Bulgaria, Armenia, the Republic of Moldova, Greece, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania to Sibiu for a week, as part of a programme dedicated to documentary cinema, film analysis and the exchange of perspectives.

Developed by the ‘I.L. Caragiale’ National University of Theatre and Cinematography in Bucharest (UNATC) and Astra Film Festival, under the coordination of UNATC lecturer Ana Vlad and PhD candidate Alexandru Borundel, the programme is run in the Erasmus+ BIP (Blended Intensive Programme) format and combines physical mobility with an online component. It is open to film students from any year of study who are interested in documentary filmmaking, and participation is recognised through ECTS credits.

At the heart of the programme is the screening of student films from the festival’s DocSchool competition, followed by open sessions on topics related to documentary cinema, brought together under the title ‘The Anatomy of a Documentary Film’. Students will formulate an assessment of the film they have watched in small groups, reflecting on the choice of subject, the perspective taken, the structure, the characters and the way the story reaches the audience, or even identifying trends and traditions in documentary cinema. The students’ presentations will be supplemented and discussed by the filmmakers present, the lecturers, and even the audience in the hall. 

The value of this exercise lies in bringing together multiple perspectives. Three perspectives that rarely come face to face thus converge in the same space: the film school, with its analytical tools; the filmmakers, who understand the motivations behind their own choices; and the audience, for whom the film must resonate beyond any explanation. Through this encounter, students can grasp something that is difficult to teach solely in a lecture: how a film resonates with people. On the other hand, the cultural diversity of the group is one of the key components of the DocStudent Hub. Students with different backgrounds, cultural references and cinematic traditions can interpret the same film in very different ways, and it is precisely these differences that become starting points for dialogue.

The programme also includes three workshops led by professionals from the documentary film industry. The workshop led by director Liviu Tipuriță begins with a simple yet essential question for documentary filmmaking: ‘Who is this person?’. Over three days, students explore how a character’s identity can become the driving force behind the story and a guiding principle for the entire filmmaking process — from choosing the subject and gaining their trust to the interview, filming and narrative construction. One of the leading consultants and mentors in European documentary filmmaking, Tue Steen Müller, will lead a session (Why I Love Documentaries! Searching for Authenticity) on what makes a documentary authentic and on the relationship between reality, the filmmaker and the story. Csaba Bollók, a director, screenwriter and film lecturer from Hungary, will explore and highlight how the blurring of the boundary between documentary and fiction can be captured.

Participating schools in DocStudentHub 2026 

The National University of Theatre and Film Arts in Bucharest,

the ‘Krastyo Sarafov’ National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts (NATFIZ) in Sofia, Bulgaria; 

Tomas Bata University in Zlín, the Czech Republic; 

‘Eszterházy Károly’ Catholic University in Eger, Hungary; 

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece; 

the State Institute of Theatre and Cinematography in Yerevan, Armenia; the Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts (AMTAP) in Chișinău, Republic of Moldova; 

Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.