CILECT Logo and Name

About CILECT

What is CILECT?

CILECT is the association of the world¹s major film and television schools. Its goals are to provide a means for the exchange of ideas among member schools, and to help them understand the future of education for creative personnel in film, television, and related media. It is dedicated to the creation, development and maintenance of regional and international co-operation among its member schools, and to the encouragement of film and television training in the developing world.

CILECT has a wider role as well - to assist in the spreading of audio-visual literacy, to be a key contributor to cultural and communication development. The first article of its statutes pledges the membership to give help and advice to all who have need of audio-visual media in their professional work, as a tool of education, information, documentation and research.

CILECT - Centre International de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinéma et de Télévision - was founded in Cannes in 1955 with the intention of stimulating a dialogue among film schools in the deeply divided world of those times. Its membership was drawn from eight countries: Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Soviet Union and the United States. By the year 2008, CILECT had grown to include 137 institutions from 56 countries on five continents. A significant number of the world's leading film and television makers are graduates of member schools.

CILECT is deeply committed to raising and maintaining the standards of teaching and learning in its member schools, and to exploring the potentials of new technologies for education, information and entertainment. Cinema and television have continuously adapted and evolved to artistic, economic, social, and technological change. So too, has CILECT. Over the years, it has continuously reviewed its activities and adapted its programmes to contemporary needs. With the relaxation of international tensions among the great powers, the diminishing of national frontiers and the emergence of new technologies CILECT moves on to a new level of international cooperation.