Joel Engelhardt
The Palm Beach Photographic Centre, forced to leave its downtown West Palm Beach location by month’s end, is announcing its first move in reinventing itself: the creation of a master’s-degree film program.
Students at the Feature Film Conservatory at Palm Beach Photographic Centre will offer an accelerated degree program that requires five eight-hour days per week for four semesters over one year with four breaks.
Tuition will be $25,000 per semester, or $100,000.
“The whole idea of the film school is the better mousetrap and I think we’ve come up with a better mousetrap,” said film industry veteran Andy “A.P.” Ferullo, who conceived the idea and has been tapped to head the school.
It proclaims itself the only master’s program that finances a feature film made and owned by students, who will split the net proceeds.
Film schools typically offer a three-year program. Students will be trained in all roles of filmmaking, from writer and director to stage hand and costume designer.
The four semesters, with a tuition of $25,000 each, will coincide with the four stages of filmmaking: development, pre-production, production and post-production, Ferullo said.
The photo centre is making the announcement now, before it lines up a location for the school and its photo museum, to let potential students know applications are open through May 15. Classes would begin in September. Ferullo expects to start with about 60 students with potential expansion to 100.
The centre is leaving downtown because the city sued in June 2022 to force it out of its 30-year Clematis Street lease, a deal designed to bring visitors to the City Hall complex built during the Lois Frankel administration.
The city and the nonprofit settled in June 2023, with the city agreeing to pay the group $1.09 million and the county agreeing to release the centre from repayment of $500,000 remaining on a grant.
The city, which leased the space to the centre for $10 a year, complained that the centre’s workshops, classes and museum didn’t draw as many visitors as promised. City officials argued they could make more money leasing the 26,000-square-foot space at market rates.
The film school establishes the centre to continue to thrive, President and CEO Fatima NeJame said in an interview.
“This Is going to bring to the Palm Beach County community … even more international recognition than we already have,” she said.
Unlike the Florida State University film program, proposed for downtown West Palm Beach as part of the Digital Domain debacle of 2012, this film program is starting from scratch, with no established industry reputation.
The aim is to find a suitable location in Palm Beach County in the coming weeks. The school can rely on rented studio space or on location filming, which means its classroom and office needs can be met in a typical office building, Ferullo said.
“I would hope that this program prepares students to do anything within the visual arena,” Ferullo said. “The real lesson of the school is how to collaborate. I hope the students form a really strong team, they work together, they bang out a film and they do well.”
Ferullo said he connected with the photo centre through a friend, Tony Bannon, former director of the George Eastman Museum, who serves on an advisory committee.
The centre’s annual Foto Fusion event, which typically draws 7,000 people to lectures, workshops and other events in late January, will not be held this year.
However, the event will be back in a new exciting form that the “entire photo community will be really thrilled about,” NeJame said.
While she has run the photo centre for 38 years, she is retiring from her executive duties while remaining on the board.
Meanwhile, a clearance sale at the centre’s downtown photo store ends Wednesday.
Joel is a founder, reporter and editor at Stet News. His award-winning newspaper career spanned more than 40 years, including 28 years at The Palm Beach Post, which he left in 2020. Joel lives with his wife in Palm Beach Gardens. He volunteers on the board of NAMI Palm Beach County and the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society.
