European Film College

The European Film College is a part of the traditional Danish Folkehöjskole program, which provides popular education without formal degrees. It is a boarding school that teaches film to movie lovers of all ages but also offers short-term courses for professionals.

The site is a green field near the picturesque city center of Ebeltoft. The complex comprises the school, student dormitory, and faculty residences. The school houses two movie theaters, studios, workshops, classrooms, administrative facilities, and a restaurant.

The main building cuts the site in two; the deep valley created by the Ice Age was left untouched, but the courtyard facing the dormitory is planned for gatherings. The southern facade, containing storage areas, kitchen, and studios, re-creates the scale of a small Danish town or the first film studios in 1920s Copenhagen, while the northern facade, clad in three-millimeter-thick zinc-coated steel plating, has a more austere character.

The entrance to the college is via long and narrow bridge, cantilevered high above the valley and facing the skyline of the town and nearby bay. Any resemblance to Hitchcock s Vertigo is purely coincidental.