Floundering Film and Television Institute of India needs a change of script

There is little doubt that Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India, the country’s premier film school, is in dire straits.

Last week, when FTII Director D J Narain called the staff together and informed them that their salaries might not be disbursed on time this month as the institute had not received cash, it was just the latest in the institute’s list of crises. According to a staffer, under the ad hoc arrangement worked out since then, staff have been told to withdraw their salary amounts as personal loans from the bank, for which the FTII will pay the interest.

OFF COURSE

For starters, there are at least 100-150 extra students on the campus at present, with the three-year course for direction, editing etc stretched to five or six years. “The fault lies both with the students who don’t finish their projects in time and the faculty and administration that are not pushing them to do so. There is no discipline left in the place,” says P K Nair, former director of the National Film Archives of India and chairman of the committee that was set up by the government three years ago to prepare a detailed report on

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