Faceoff Part II: Centre's plan to merge 4 film bodies with NFDC is a body blow

Don’t kill film institutions by merging them with a moribund body like NFDCBy Adoor GopalakrishnanIt is definitely a wrong idea to merge institutions like the Films Division (FD), National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) and Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI) with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).All these self-contained institutions will be crushed under the heavy weight of the leviathan the government is trying to create. As a practitioner long associated with many of these institutes, I can say for certain that the merger is an ill-advised move made without any study or understanding of the functioning of these organisations.It looks like someone’s weird, impulsive idea of bringing a comatose NFDC back to life. It is evident that the government has not gone into the simple exercise of studying why the NFDC has miserably failed in its assigned mission. medium nocaption88739003 medium nocaption88738811I was one of the members of the Dr Shivaram Karanth Committee called the Film study Group (1979) and the setting up of the NFDC was one of the important recommendations we had made with high hopes and expectations. Its members included Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, B R Chopra, Ramanand Sagar and Vijaya Mulay. And the corporation was formed with some of us as members on its first Board of Directors. We had an MD appointed by the government who would rather take orders from the minister directly than execute the decisions of the board. In effect, the board and the executive were constantly at loggerheads. And the MD had the minister advise us to cooperate with her!No wonder, in the four decades since its inception, the NFDC has been on a course of steady decline, more often than not working without a board of directors. And it has by now clearly distanced itself from any film business. It now exists for itself. It is strange that the government is now planning to saddle it with a heavy load of functions the incumbent is hardly capable of performing even if it is blessed with loads of funds.The question one would ask is, is it worthwhile annihilating institutions like the NFAI and the Films Division to prop up a moribund body that has proved its worthlessness beyond any doubt?If institutions like the CFSI have been under-performing, it is mostly because they do not get the right kind of leadership. I can recall a period when the society came to life when Jaya Bachchan was heading it.One is at a loss to understand how the NFAI, which is the country’s treasure trove of film heritage and culture, can be left to languish under a corporate body like the NFDC. It is one institution that has been performing exceedingly well from its inception. Fortunately, for some time now it has been headed by a knowledgeable and dedicated officer. Tampering with its autonomous functioning can cause irreparable damage.Films Division has been under constant threat of demolition for some time now. With no recruitments done and its functions being thinned out, everyone has come to accept its end as a fait accompli. The sheer transfer itself will do the job, sparing NFDC any conscious effort. (One has to acknowledge the good but short period of stewardship the FD enjoyed under the able directorship of V S Kundu).The International Film Festival, now located in Goa, is another case of enormous amounts of money spent with little to no results. The reason is simple. Bureaucrats are helming it. India is the only country where bureaucrats run a film festival. And professionalism is a casualty. Festivals, big and small, all over the world are run by professionals. After all, film festival management should not be confused with event management.The urgent need is to set up an autonomous body for IFFI and appoint professionals to key positions like director of the fest. The government’s involvement should be limited to a decent and reasonable annual grant and also its representation on the governing body.The merger committee has been merciful in leaving the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) out of its plan for execution. They seem to have been allowed a longer life. Thank God! medium nocaption88738817Read the entire argument here: For years, these entities have wasted money. Streamlining was requiredLet us be frank about it. So far the government’s approach to cinema has been exceedingly negative. Take the case of disbanding the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, the plans to introduce super censoring, and now the merger move. All these smack of distrust of film people who are creative and free-minded.Let us now examine the scenario from a different angle. Imagine setting up a separate Ministry for Cinema. The idea should be not to control and constrict cinema but to nurture and promote it so that it can stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the film world. There is no lack of talent in this country. We only have to create a congenial climate for it to blossom. A democratic government should spread conducive vibes rather than turn oppressive and punitive. Share your opinion on this debate on social media with the hashtag #MyFaceoffView. Participate in the reader poll on our social handles by visiting linktr.ee/timesfaceoff. Select comments will be featured in the newspaper and highlighted on our social handles @TheTrustofIndia