Year after year, FTII talent goes places

PUNE: The year was 1975. A firebrand student led a month-long agitation of the acting course students in Pune's Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) demanding that they be allowed to act in the students' films at the institute. That youngster was Naseeruddin Shah.
In its 55-year-old existence, there have been 39 strikes over academic issues, syllabus, course structure and faculty at FTII.
Students of the acting department went on strike for a week in 1978 after the course was closed. In 1991, they protested for 100 days against the course structure. In 1997, students went on a hunger strike for some days in a month-long stir against the proposed course structure. In 2011, they protested for a week against the Hewitt Associates report on upgrading the institute.
The current protest, which is in its second week, is over the controversial appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as chairperson of the governing council by the Union government.
The institute has always been plagued by issues from the syllabus to courses that stretch and the resultant backlog. After the closure of its acting course, a questionable step, the institute lost its 'face' as it was reduced to a school that primarily groomed directors and technicians who were always behind the camera.
Yet the FTII continues to be a landmark institution with its students winning most national awards in the student film category. "Every year, our students bag a lion's share in the national film awards," said director D J Narain.
The institute has been a torch-bearer of excellence. Filmmaker Sriram Raghavan felt much at FTII depends on students and teachers and the thirst for innovation.
"At FTII, there is much more awareness about cinema and the media. We were exposed to classics of world cinema and our own regional cinema. There is also the thirst for experimentation and the arrogance and confidence of conquering the world," he added.
But the film school is sitting on a powder keg with incomplete syllabus resulting in backlogs and poor infrastructure leading a long list of woes. In the past, the syllabus was so detailed that a three-year course often stretched to five years. Faisal Rahman, a student of direction of the 2008 batch, is yet to officially graduate.
"In my batch's case, there was rampant non-scheduling of classes and workshops. No student wishes to stay on for over five years of his own will. Given the syllabus and projects, the organization and infrastructure at the institute is inadequate," he said.
His batch also suffered during the swine flu scare in the state in 2009 when the institute was closed for six months.
The P K Nair committee in 2010 found that new students were admitted despite backlogs since 2005. It delayed the new academic session by a year as there was no place in the hostel to accommodate so many students.
Students also took time to learn the digital medium of filmmaking from the analogue medium. "We did not have faculty to teach us for many months," an editing student from the 2010 batch said.
Rakesh Shukla, a third-year direction student, said two more sound-mixing studios were set up on the premises only four months ago. "Students work in eight-hour shifts. We are expected to finish our projects in 40 shifts, which is impossible. We need at least two to three months to finish our shoots," he said.
Falling standards in the faculty is also a sore point with low pay not helping matters. "There are many new film schools in the country. Most are private institutions ready to pay astronomical sums for a robust faculty which a government institute like FTII cannot afford. How many professionals would leave lucrative offers to mentor students here for a pittance?" said many voices associated with FTII.
There are problems with the direction course. Filmmaker Kundan Shah said, "The course is the only one that has failed the film school. It has not quite realised its potential. The acting course, which was re-launched after being discontinued for 35 years, is yet to pick up steam."
But fresh acting exports Rajkumar Rao, Pitobash Tripathy and Jaideep Ahlawat are finding their feet in the industry and giving the much-needed glamour to the institute. "When you come from FTII, people take you seriously," Rao and Ahlawat said.
Some tweaking has taken place recently. The institute revamped its syllabus to clear backlog issues from the new academic year. The Union government increased the budgetary allocation from Rs 52 crore to Rs 80 crore in the 12th Five-Year Plan to make FTII a global institute. Of this, Rs 37 crore would be spent on new equipment alone.
Filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli, who graduated in 1975, said, "People think FTII is not up there anymore is because we do not have 'faces'. The acting course was discontinued for 35 years. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the media gave FTII a lot of importance. Now, it is given that FTII will perform, so there is no exclusivity in reporting about its merits."
Both Kasaravalli and Shah rated FTII's technique way above the rest. "Bollywood will be practically empty without FTIIans. Supremacy in technique has always been its forte. Students have absorbed everything about technique here and taken it to a new level. Its documentary filmmakers are a class apart," they said.