The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), which has been facing competition from the private sector finishing schools for acting in Mumbai, has proposed to tie up with the latter.Under consideration at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is a proposal put up by FTII for a collaboration with Subhash Ghai’s Whistling Woods International based in Goregaon, Mumbai. Ironically, it is the acting course — the most talked about at FTII — that has prompted this move as its students are facing severe placement problems.Modalities for such an alliance are being sought, with the Pune-based institute seeking an assurance from its private sector counterpart for placement of its acting stream students.“The suggestion came from Whistling Woods recently that they would like to get associated with FTII for the training of their acting batch. Following this, I forwarded a proposal to this effect to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and am awaiting their opinion on this,” Pankaj Rag, director FTII, told The Indian Express.According to Rag, such a joint venture will make sense to FTII only if Whistling Woods can assure placement for a certain number of students from the premier institute. “Other students, be it in editing, directing and even screenplay, have no problems in landing jobs. Many in fact get jobs even with a year left to pass out, but the acting course students do not find it so easy. So if Whistling Woods guarantees good roles for even the first three students of our acting batch, this arrangement would be worth considering,” said Rag. Among the issues that will need to be ironed out is how students from FTII, with a modest fee structure can share space with those in Whistling Woods that commands a much costlier fee pattern that it justifies with better infrastructure, more facilities and better opportunities in the film world.Ravi Gupta, CEO of Mukta Arts, Ghai’s production house, admitted that the offer to evolve a joint training capsule for the acting batches of FTII and Whistling Woods has been made. “It’s an attempt to co-operate with each other and merge resources and expertise for the larger good of the students,” he said.Though FTII believes that they still have the upper hand given the institute’s reputation and a more modest fee structure, Whistling Woods has managed to lure some of the best names in the FTII faculty over to their rolls. This includes Leela director Somnath Sen and documentary maker Anil Zankar. “Actually 80 per cent of the faculty here is ex-FTII—either they have worked there or studied there,” said Zankar who was a visiting faculty at FTII coordinating the UNDP project there and is now senior professor, film appreciation, at Whistling Woods. “The difference between the two is that while FTII has no permanent teachers with everyone on contract basis, at Whistling Woods the entire faculty is full-time. But, of course, FTII is well established while we will have our first batch passing out this year,” Zankar added.Meanwhile, Rag conceded that for an arrangement like this to work what would probably be best is a three-party agreement involving another film house that could guarantee absorbing the actors who pass out of the institute.
