The Department began its journey as the Department of Television and Film Studies at the University of Dhaka on January 23, 2012 with the appointment of Professor Dr. AJM Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan, a Canadian scholar. It has been renamed as the Department of Television, Film and Photography on 29 November 2016. The mission of this Department is to develop creative and skilled workforce as well as conducting research on the television, film and photography industry. The Department is affiliated with the faculty of social sciences. It offers a four-year Bachelor program in Television, Film and Photography, a one-year Master's program and a two-year professional Master in Television, Film and Photography program,
The Department enrolled its first Master cohort in 2012-13 academic session and Honors cohort in 2013-14 academic session. Each program enrolls 30 students per year. In 2017-18 academic session it has welcomed its first foreign student, a Commonwealth scholar, in Master’s 6th cohort from Malawi, Africa. All aspects of television journalism, television production, photography and film making and criticism are taught in the Department. It has a Digital Resource Center equipped with latest cameras, sound equipment and edit panels. It also has a vast collection of books related to the field of television, photography and film studies. Recently, it has set up a Television Studio with funding from the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh under the Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP). Moreover, it has launched an Animation Lab with support from the Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority. It also has several active student clubs such as film club, photography club and career club.
The Department has a strong team of faculty member involving full time and adjunct faculty members. Leading industry figures teach courses at the Department as adjunct faculties. It also maintains an active collaboration with the industry.
The Department organizes workshops and seminars every semester where faculty members, students and industry people share their research and production ideas and discuss contemporary trends in the field. It ultimate goal is to contribute to the development of a mass media sector in Bangladesh. With this aim, it organizes career fairs in which students display their work before industry people. The graduates of the Department are highly successful and well established in the industry. Several alumni of the Department have gone on to write and direct independent films, a few of which have won awards at different film competitions and have been screened at different national and international festivals.
