Apply to the New David Lynch Masters in Film Program, Where You’ll Meditate & Create

Image by amoe­bafin­ger on Flickr Com­mons.

When the Amer­i­can Film Insti­tute set up its con­ser­va­to­ry for Advanced Film Stud­ies in 1969, its first round of stu­dents includ­ed Ter­rence Mal­ick, Caleb Deschanel, Paul Schrad­er, and the Mas­ter of Absurd him­self, David Lynch. (Now that’s a class reunion worth going to!) Now some 40 years on, the Mahar­ishi Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­age­ment, in Fair­field, Iowa, is accept­ing appli­ca­tions for its David Lynch MA in Film pro­gram.

Lynch has been prac­tic­ing Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion for as long as he’s been a film­mak­er, and in inter­views and in books like Catch­ing the Big Fish, he espous­es the won­ders of med­i­ta­tion for cre­ativ­i­ty. (See him talk more about that here.) Stu­dents enrolled in the David Lynch Film pro­gram will fol­low Lynch’s exam­ple by com­bin­ing med­i­ta­tion with film­mak­ing. You might not cre­ate the next Eraser­head (Lynch’s AFI project that turned into his career-defin­ing debut), but, accord­ing to Lynch, stu­dents are promised to dis­cov­er

the abil­i­ty to dive within—to tran­scend and expe­ri­ence that unbound­ed ocean of pure con­scious­ness which is unbound­ed intel­li­gence, cre­ativ­i­ty, hap­pi­ness, love, ener­gy, pow­er, and peace.

Before one gets too excit­ed and thinks that the direc­tor him­self will be teach­ing every class and that you’ll get to hang out with him dur­ing office hours, that’s not the way the pro­gram works.

Class­es are taught by director/cinematographer Michael W. Barnard (and once the head of the Maharishi’s film depart­ment), screen­writer Dorothy Rompalske, and David Lynch Foun­da­tion Tele­vi­sion founder Amine Kouider. Guest speak­ers have includ­ed Jim Car­rey, Peter Far­rel­ly, script doc­tor Dara Marks, Twin Peaks alum Duwayne Dun­ham, and many oth­er Hol­ly­wood insid­ers.

How­ev­er, stu­dents do get a field trip to Los Ange­les to meet Lynch and spend time with the film­mak­er. The aspir­ing film­mak­ers should con­sid­er them­selves lucky, see­ing that the direc­tor is busy work­ing on Twin Peaks’ new sea­son and appar­ent­ly writ­ing an auto­bi­og­ra­phy.

There are two schol­ar­ships up for grabs for appli­cants who have a film or script to sub­mit, but the dead­line is fast approach­ing on Nov. 1.

via Cri­te­ri­on

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Explains Where His Ideas Come From

Pat­ti Smith and David Lynch Talk About the Source of Their Ideas & Cre­ative Inspi­ra­tion

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Enhances Our Cre­ativ­i­ty

David Lynch Cre­ates a Very Sur­re­al Plug for Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion

David Lynch Talks Med­i­ta­tion with Paul McCart­ney

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.