The University of Colorado Denver is one of the best institutions in the Western US for undergraduate filmmakers. Located in the Mile High City, CU Denver is only a short drive from the acclaimed Red Rocks Amphitheatre concert venue, picturesque hiking trails, and some of the world’s best skiing facilities. Its BFA in Film and Television, offered through the Department of Film & Television, provides students with a production-heavy learning experience at a lower cost than many other film programs in the region.
In 2025, MovieMaker Magazine ranked CU Denver one of the nation's best film programs for the fourth consecutive year, placing it alongside top institutions such as NYU and USC. Much of CU Denver's success comes not only from its affordability, especially for in-state students, but from a curriculum that gives students the freedom to immediately dive into building skills that support industry careers.
To find out what sets CU Denver apart from other undergraduate film programs, Alexa Pellegrini spoke with David Liban, professor and chair of the Department of Film & Television.
Liban brings his experience as an educator and practicing filmmaker to help guide students toward greater creative success. His credits include "Publish or Perish," a feature-length dark comedy, and "A Feral World," a low-budget feature made with CU Denver students and released by Gravitas Ventures. Most recently, Liban's short film "Love Less Likely" has been making the festival rounds as a proof of concept for an upcoming feature.
In part one of this exclusive interview, Liban explores the evolution of the BFA, its cohort model, how faculty engage with students, and tips to help applicants gain a competitive advantage.
Editor's note: This interview is approximately 12 pages. Part 2 (7 pages) offers a closer look into the types of films students create, how students collaborate across disciplines, CU Denver's alumni network, and more. It is available exclusively to Supporting Members, without whom in-depth articles and interviews like this one would not be possible as FilmSchool.org is 100% advertisement-free. Supporting Members also enjoy access to our database that tracks upwards of 5,000 film school applications and the full Acceptance Data statistics for each film program that helps demystify common questions about how to construct a winning portfolio, ideal GPAs and GRE scores, and much more.
David Liban: We of the CU Faculty all went to film school, so we tried to create a film program that we wished we had when we were in college. So, it's a program that is largely hands-on. I would say that 80% of this program is all about hands-on production. This is also a foundational film program where students get to make mistakes. They make films, they try things, and they can experiment. So, they’re learning by doing things from the get go. There's some discussion and instruction throughout, but we believe that the main way of learning to make films is by making them, and we give students a lot of opportunities to do so.
Also, our program is a generalist program, meaning you don’t focus solely on cinematography or directing from the get go. We believe that you should try it all. Because a lot of students might go down the path of, let’s say, producing, and then they realize, 'Hey, I think I really want to be an editor.' If that were to happen, they could be too far into the program to change course. So, we feel like it's better to expose our students to all areas of filmmaking.
DL: Hollywood has always been a tough nut to crack, so getting into that is a different thing. Independent cinema is being wiped clean, too. There's not a lot of those types of films currently being funded, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, right? So, there are also a lot of other types of avenues to get into the industry.
We hear a lot of people saying that the jobs aren't there. But, you know, people who are really, really persistent can and do get jobs. It's the people who are sort of lukewarm and don't have the gumption, the ability to knock on doors, and the ability to take rejection who struggle most. They usually don’t find the work that they're hoping for.
So, the film industry is a different animal. You have to be in Hollywood to be in the industry, and that means you have to work your way up. A lot of the work currently out there is the television industry. When we changed our department name to the Department of Film & Television around six years ago, it was to acknowledge the fact that you can work in one or the other and have a successful career.
There’s also a lot of work in corporate video. The skills that you learn in film school can definitely be applied in avenues other than large-budget and independent film and television. All corporations have some sort of AV video component nowadays. There are a lot of corporate jobs out there, so being prepared for that supports our generalist theory. And for smaller production companies in the world, being a jack-of-all-trades is becoming the norm.
Tivoli Student Union on the Auraria Campus at CU Denver. (Courtesy: Nove1986, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
DL: The real strength of our program is our faculty. We want to see [our students] succeed and get into the industry and do the kind of thing that they dream about doing. We're here to give them those skills and help them find those opportunities by challenging them.
We developed our cohort model on the basis of, ‘We really have this great group of students that can support one another.’ It's our job to say where their film isn’t working, and we have a certain degree of experience where we can confidently say what could be improved — and the students really protect [each other] if we say anything negative about their work. The student might say, ‘Oh, but I liked it. I think it was perfect the way it was,’ which can be a problem if they don’t see what needs to be improved.
The point is that I admire how much they want to protect each other and their work. We have a community that surrounds them, and that is one of the best things that they'll get here: the ability to make a lot of films, practice their craft, and reflect on what it is they did while working with other supportive artists.
DL: CU Denver is all about storytelling. I know that CU Boulder focuses on the avant-garde, but we don't see a lot of jobs for people who are only making experimental films.
What we focus on after storytelling is job placement, meaning that if you graduate from our film program, you’re eligible to be on any film set at an entry level, right from the get go. Because we really focus on the process of making movies, moving from thinking about storytelling to concretely communicating your ideas. We teach our students how to tell a story with a defined beginning, a middle, and end, because this is a structure that consistently engages audiences. Compared to avant-garde filmmaking, which has a very niche audience, we encourage our students to ask themselves how they can fit into the realm of movies and TV shows that they and people have come to expect.
So, I'd say our program is more industry-focused. That's really what we want — for our students to leave prepared to work in the industry at some level.
DL: It's not New York. It's not L.A. We acknowledge that. In Denver, it's all about commercials and documentaries.
Now, people make feature films here, too. There is a strong filmmaking community here, absolutely. But it's not massive. People who find filmmaking work [in Denver] are often the self-motivated folks who find their own genre.
There are a lot of jobs in Denver’s corporate world that people can get. A lot of people start their own businesses around filmmaking, too. My DP has a company in town, and he's doing really, really well. He does commercials and documentaries, and he hires a lot of CU Denver students, too. He also teaches lighting workshops.
So, being in Denver is just like being in any metropolis that has unique opportunities to tell stories. You have the advantage of being in a big city versus being in a very tiny college town. If you want to be an editor, it's also becoming very common to work remotely; you can live in virtually any city. But if you want to be in the movie and television business, ultimately, you’ll probably have to live in a major media hub. And no matter what type of job you have, to make initial industry connections, you'll need to test the waters by living in the right cities. It’s not like you’ll graduate and just fall into a job at Netflix. You have to go to where that is.
DL: This goes back to my response about the film school we wish we would have had. We created a cohort model — a program set up to scaffold the learning process. Before you take Production I, you also have to take scriptwriting and Lighting, Grip, Sound. So, we set up students to take these classes in a specific order. What that does is that students progress through the curriculum together and it creates a bond among students, who, over the course of each semester, figure out who they do and don’t want to work with. We see groups of students travel through their college career together.
We also have an active film club where students can go beyond what is required in their classes, and make films [...] beyond what we're challenging them to do. We see very collaborative groups of students who often form lasting friendships. When they graduate, the people that they're going to call upon are the same people who were in their cohort.
DL: I think it's great for them to go to the Lynx summer camp to see what life is going to be like when they come here. But it doesn't necessarily provide them a certain foothold in getting into our film program.
People teaching the summer camp are professors in our program and they work directly with students. So, students can talk to them and learn more. I think it's a terrific way for them to test the waters and see if CU Denver is the film school they want to go to. They'll see that we have a really well-stocked cage of equipment, and that our faculty really care about their students' success.
DL: First, you have to get admitted to CU Denver. Then, there’s a secondary application that ends up on my desk. I’m part of the committee that reviews all undergraduate applicants.
Typically, we look for students with at least a 3.0 [GPA] coming out of high school or as a transfer student. It's not required to make films before you apply. I mean, that certainly helps, but that's not the main thing we’re looking for. We want to teach our students how to make films, so we don't expect them to already know how to write and shoot films. However, we do like to see that they are capable of writing and communicating ideas.
DL: We used to have applicants submit a portfolio. We killed that because they were making films in high school that didn't really mean anything. Now, we ask that applicants give us two or three ideas of films they want to make. We want applicants to show us that they have stories to tell and why they chose them. They also have to look at a film and write a response about what they’re seeing in terms of visuals, production design, acting, color, and cinematography.
We are cognizant of people using AI to create essays for them. Although, they should understand that we can tell when they've used AI, because the responses all kind of sound the same. So, avoid doing that if you really want to come to CU Denver.
DL: Applicants should also have people proofread their work. So, the film they have to analyze is a short film by the Coen Brothers that’s linked from our application website. We don’t want to see applicants write something like 10 sentences that all essentially say, ‘I liked the film, it was very good.’ We want applicants to put more thought into their responses. What is going on from the filmmaker's point of view? What do you notice here? Show us why you want to be a filmmaker by examining the film in a way that shows that creative, intellectual analysis. That will go a lot further than only sharing your opinion of the film.
DL: If somebody is transferring, we prefer that they come in the fall because that keeps them more closely on our curriculum map. But [spring transfers] happen all the time, so we try our best to help students go through our program without too many hurdles. I look at applications all through the year.
In part 2 of our interview, Liban shares the gear freshmen shoot on and when they graduate to better cameras, more about the cohort model, how students can take advantage of working with CU Denver's incredible line-up of guest lecturers, and other insights into why CU Denver is unique from other undergraduate film programs. If you aren't yet a Supporting Member, upgrade your membership to continue reading.
Prospective students interested in learning more about the BFA in Film and Television at CU Denver can contact David Liban directly at david.liban@ucdenver.edu. You can also learn more by attending on Film & TV Department Tour or a CAM Virtual Info Session and visiting the FilmSchool.org Application Year threads.
If you’ve applied to CU Denver, we encourage you to log your application to help other aspiring film school students.
FilmSchool.org is 100% advertisement-free, and Supporting Memberships make articles and interviews like this one possible. Supporting Members also enjoy FULL access to the application database (GPAs, test scores, portfolios...), our full Acceptance Data statistics, private student clubs and forums, and other perks.
In 2025, MovieMaker Magazine ranked CU Denver one of the nation's best film programs for the fourth consecutive year, placing it alongside top institutions such as NYU and USC. Much of CU Denver's success comes not only from its affordability, especially for in-state students, but from a curriculum that gives students the freedom to immediately dive into building skills that support industry careers.
Liban brings his experience as an educator and practicing filmmaker to help guide students toward greater creative success. His credits include "Publish or Perish," a feature-length dark comedy, and "A Feral World," a low-budget feature made with CU Denver students and released by Gravitas Ventures. Most recently, Liban's short film "Love Less Likely" has been making the festival rounds as a proof of concept for an upcoming feature.
In part one of this exclusive interview, Liban explores the evolution of the BFA, its cohort model, how faculty engage with students, and tips to help applicants gain a competitive advantage.
Editor's note: This interview is approximately 12 pages. Part 2 (7 pages) offers a closer look into the types of films students create, how students collaborate across disciplines, CU Denver's alumni network, and more. It is available exclusively to Supporting Members, without whom in-depth articles and interviews like this one would not be possible as FilmSchool.org is 100% advertisement-free. Supporting Members also enjoy access to our database that tracks upwards of 5,000 film school applications and the full Acceptance Data statistics for each film program that helps demystify common questions about how to construct a winning portfolio, ideal GPAs and GRE scores, and much more.
Can you share a few key things about CU Denver's film program that applicants may not know or expect?
David Liban: We of the CU Faculty all went to film school, so we tried to create a film program that we wished we had when we were in college. So, it's a program that is largely hands-on. I would say that 80% of this program is all about hands-on production. This is also a foundational film program where students get to make mistakes. They make films, they try things, and they can experiment. So, they’re learning by doing things from the get go. There's some discussion and instruction throughout, but we believe that the main way of learning to make films is by making them, and we give students a lot of opportunities to do so.
Also, our program is a generalist program, meaning you don’t focus solely on cinematography or directing from the get go. We believe that you should try it all. Because a lot of students might go down the path of, let’s say, producing, and then they realize, 'Hey, I think I really want to be an editor.' If that were to happen, they could be too far into the program to change course. So, we feel like it's better to expose our students to all areas of filmmaking.
Entry-level roles are becoming increasingly difficult to get. Do you feel that being a generalist could help make CU Denver film students and alumni more competitive?
DL: Hollywood has always been a tough nut to crack, so getting into that is a different thing. Independent cinema is being wiped clean, too. There's not a lot of those types of films currently being funded, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, right? So, there are also a lot of other types of avenues to get into the industry.
We hear a lot of people saying that the jobs aren't there. But, you know, people who are really, really persistent can and do get jobs. It's the people who are sort of lukewarm and don't have the gumption, the ability to knock on doors, and the ability to take rejection who struggle most. They usually don’t find the work that they're hoping for.
So, the film industry is a different animal. You have to be in Hollywood to be in the industry, and that means you have to work your way up. A lot of the work currently out there is the television industry. When we changed our department name to the Department of Film & Television around six years ago, it was to acknowledge the fact that you can work in one or the other and have a successful career.
There’s also a lot of work in corporate video. The skills that you learn in film school can definitely be applied in avenues other than large-budget and independent film and television. All corporations have some sort of AV video component nowadays. There are a lot of corporate jobs out there, so being prepared for that supports our generalist theory. And for smaller production companies in the world, being a jack-of-all-trades is becoming the norm.
Tivoli Student Union on the Auraria Campus at CU Denver. (Courtesy: Nove1986, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
What sets CU Denver's film program apart from other film schools that undergraduates might be considering?
DL: The real strength of our program is our faculty. We want to see [our students] succeed and get into the industry and do the kind of thing that they dream about doing. We're here to give them those skills and help them find those opportunities by challenging them.
We developed our cohort model on the basis of, ‘We really have this great group of students that can support one another.’ It's our job to say where their film isn’t working, and we have a certain degree of experience where we can confidently say what could be improved — and the students really protect [each other] if we say anything negative about their work. The student might say, ‘Oh, but I liked it. I think it was perfect the way it was,’ which can be a problem if they don’t see what needs to be improved.
The point is that I admire how much they want to protect each other and their work. We have a community that surrounds them, and that is one of the best things that they'll get here: the ability to make a lot of films, practice their craft, and reflect on what it is they did while working with other supportive artists.
Jumping off of that, how would you describe CU Denver's creative identity and how that compares to what CU Boulder offers?
DL: CU Denver is all about storytelling. I know that CU Boulder focuses on the avant-garde, but we don't see a lot of jobs for people who are only making experimental films.
What we focus on after storytelling is job placement, meaning that if you graduate from our film program, you’re eligible to be on any film set at an entry level, right from the get go. Because we really focus on the process of making movies, moving from thinking about storytelling to concretely communicating your ideas. We teach our students how to tell a story with a defined beginning, a middle, and end, because this is a structure that consistently engages audiences. Compared to avant-garde filmmaking, which has a very niche audience, we encourage our students to ask themselves how they can fit into the realm of movies and TV shows that they and people have come to expect.
So, I'd say our program is more industry-focused. That's really what we want — for our students to leave prepared to work in the industry at some level.
In what ways does studying in downtown Denver shape the film student experience?
DL: It's not New York. It's not L.A. We acknowledge that. In Denver, it's all about commercials and documentaries.
Now, people make feature films here, too. There is a strong filmmaking community here, absolutely. But it's not massive. People who find filmmaking work [in Denver] are often the self-motivated folks who find their own genre.
There are a lot of jobs in Denver’s corporate world that people can get. A lot of people start their own businesses around filmmaking, too. My DP has a company in town, and he's doing really, really well. He does commercials and documentaries, and he hires a lot of CU Denver students, too. He also teaches lighting workshops.
So, being in Denver is just like being in any metropolis that has unique opportunities to tell stories. You have the advantage of being in a big city versus being in a very tiny college town. If you want to be an editor, it's also becoming very common to work remotely; you can live in virtually any city. But if you want to be in the movie and television business, ultimately, you’ll probably have to live in a major media hub. And no matter what type of job you have, to make initial industry connections, you'll need to test the waters by living in the right cities. It’s not like you’ll graduate and just fall into a job at Netflix. You have to go to where that is.
What is the culture like on campus?
DL: This goes back to my response about the film school we wish we would have had. We created a cohort model — a program set up to scaffold the learning process. Before you take Production I, you also have to take scriptwriting and Lighting, Grip, Sound. So, we set up students to take these classes in a specific order. What that does is that students progress through the curriculum together and it creates a bond among students, who, over the course of each semester, figure out who they do and don’t want to work with. We see groups of students travel through their college career together.
We also have an active film club where students can go beyond what is required in their classes, and make films [...] beyond what we're challenging them to do. We see very collaborative groups of students who often form lasting friendships. When they graduate, the people that they're going to call upon are the same people who were in their cohort.
Do you recommend high school students who are interested in CU Denver or fully committed to attending apply to the Lynx National Arts and Media Camp for film and animation?
DL: I think it's great for them to go to the Lynx summer camp to see what life is going to be like when they come here. But it doesn't necessarily provide them a certain foothold in getting into our film program.
People teaching the summer camp are professors in our program and they work directly with students. So, students can talk to them and learn more. I think it's a terrific way for them to test the waters and see if CU Denver is the film school they want to go to. They'll see that we have a really well-stocked cage of equipment, and that our faculty really care about their students' success.
Can you walk us through the application process?
DL: First, you have to get admitted to CU Denver. Then, there’s a secondary application that ends up on my desk. I’m part of the committee that reviews all undergraduate applicants.
Typically, we look for students with at least a 3.0 [GPA] coming out of high school or as a transfer student. It's not required to make films before you apply. I mean, that certainly helps, but that's not the main thing we’re looking for. We want to teach our students how to make films, so we don't expect them to already know how to write and shoot films. However, we do like to see that they are capable of writing and communicating ideas.
Do applicants need to submit a portfolio?
DL: We used to have applicants submit a portfolio. We killed that because they were making films in high school that didn't really mean anything. Now, we ask that applicants give us two or three ideas of films they want to make. We want applicants to show us that they have stories to tell and why they chose them. They also have to look at a film and write a response about what they’re seeing in terms of visuals, production design, acting, color, and cinematography.
We are cognizant of people using AI to create essays for them. Although, they should understand that we can tell when they've used AI, because the responses all kind of sound the same. So, avoid doing that if you really want to come to CU Denver.
Aside from using AI to write essays, what other common mistakes should applicants avoid?
DL: Applicants should also have people proofread their work. So, the film they have to analyze is a short film by the Coen Brothers that’s linked from our application website. We don’t want to see applicants write something like 10 sentences that all essentially say, ‘I liked the film, it was very good.’ We want applicants to put more thought into their responses. What is going on from the filmmaker's point of view? What do you notice here? Show us why you want to be a filmmaker by examining the film in a way that shows that creative, intellectual analysis. That will go a lot further than only sharing your opinion of the film.
At what point can undergraduates transfer into CU Denver's film program?
DL: If somebody is transferring, we prefer that they come in the fall because that keeps them more closely on our curriculum map. But [spring transfers] happen all the time, so we try our best to help students go through our program without too many hurdles. I look at applications all through the year.
Thank you for reading! The interview continues in part 2…
CU Denver Film & Television Program Admissions: Tips from David Liban, Department Chair (Part 2)
In the second and final part of our interview, Alexa Pellegrini continues the discussion with David Liban about student life in the program, including the equipment and facilities, on-campus culture, how CU Denver's annual film festival supports student development, and more. Liban also shares...
- Alexa P.
- Category: Supporting Member Exclusives
In part 2 of our interview, Liban shares the gear freshmen shoot on and when they graduate to better cameras, more about the cohort model, how students can take advantage of working with CU Denver's incredible line-up of guest lecturers, and other insights into why CU Denver is unique from other undergraduate film programs. If you aren't yet a Supporting Member, upgrade your membership to continue reading.
Prospective students interested in learning more about the BFA in Film and Television at CU Denver can contact David Liban directly at david.liban@ucdenver.edu. You can also learn more by attending on Film & TV Department Tour or a CAM Virtual Info Session and visiting the FilmSchool.org Application Year threads.
If you’ve applied to CU Denver, we encourage you to log your application to help other aspiring film school students.
FilmSchool.org is 100% advertisement-free, and Supporting Memberships make articles and interviews like this one possible. Supporting Members also enjoy FULL access to the application database (GPAs, test scores, portfolios...), our full Acceptance Data statistics, private student clubs and forums, and other perks.
