Film de force

The reason is clearing of backlogs of students who have been unable to complete their courses over the years and have continued to stay over at the campus and work. “One of the primary reasons for the students not being able to complete their courses is that they go to work in the film industry in their second or third year itself. FTII has a liberal set up where this has been allowed always. Another reason being a lot of the students also go abroad for various film-related programmes,workshops and even courses,which sets back their course at the institute,” says DJ Narain,director,FTII. He adds that the move was necessary as the backlog was hampering the overall pace of work at the institute. “Last year we took a decision that by 2013 we would clear all the backlogs and all batches will come to terms of completing the courses on time and hence we took a step in that direction,” he says.

Narain mentions that the institute recently spent Rs 6 crores procuring new cameras. Also he mentions that there will be investments to ensure that the rush of films is properly managed. “We will be hiring production crews and equipments from outside. For post-production,we will hire post-production studios in Pune and Mumbai,” he says. A total additional expenditure of Rs 75 lakhs has been put in to fund the completion of their projects. Of this,around Rs 50 lakhs will be towards hiring cameras,equipment and the crew,the rest will be for logistics,transport,and extra manpower that will be required for the shoots.

Still busy shooting his film,Arun says that two of his batch mates from the USA and Kazakhstan have already finished their shoot and eight more films from his batch will be shot over the next couple of months. Arun is one of the luckier students who has already begun shooting and will finish by the time the real rush begins later in November when the other batches – 2008 and 2009 – will start shooting.

Sandeep Chatterjee,professor and HOD,direction,says,“We were aware of the enormity of the task but it was necessary to pull the plug on the backlogs. The issue was that we were facing problems when the new batches would come in. One batch requires around five to six months to complete their diploma films. We have also worked on getting additional faculty to help guide them for the completion.”

Considering that the FTII students have been bagging National Awards every year,there will be multiplicity of choice next year for the National Awards. “Since three batches will be making their films,they will all be competing against one another,which itself is an issue. We will be speaking to the I&B Ministry and check what best can be worked out,” he further adds.

Meanwhile,Arun is relaxed and unfazed by all the momentum at FTII and is happy that finally things will fall in place. “We have worked very hard for almost five years now. Perhaps this will be a fitting farewell for us,” says Arun.