Bollywood Megastar Anand To Launch Golden Jubilee

Bollywood Megastar Dev Anand To Launch Golden Jubilee Celebrations Of India’s Film & TV Institute

Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), the premier film and television training center of the country in Pune, is celebrating its Golden Jubilee Year starting March 20.

Renowned Bollywood personality Dev Anand will be the chief guest in the Year’s commencement celebrations today in its campus. It will include screening of the films of the first batch and a Prabhat Studio (which now forms FTII) film “Amrit Manthan” (1934), Magic Lantern Show (pre-cinema activity of 1890s), marathon, etc.

Established in 1960, its alumni include leading figures of India’s film industry like Subhash Ghai, Mani Kaul, Nasiruddin Shah, Jaya Bhaduri, Raza Murad, Shatrughan Sinha, Mithun Chakraborty, Tom Alter, Kanwarjit Paintal, Adoor Gopal Krishnan, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Raj Kumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Resul Pookutty, etc.

An autonomous body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India, its policies are determined by an eight-member Governing Council. Pankaj Rag (IAS) is the director, while Dr. Kedarnath Awati and Dr. Iftekhar Ahmad are deans of films and television respectively.

Other events planned for the Golden Jubilee Year 2010-2011 include: special Kurosawa festival; FTII festival in some cities; seminars on film restoration, independent cinema, history of Indian cinema, documentary movement; visits by prominent people associated with filmmaking. It is also planning to organize festivals on folk cinema, women filmmakers, experimental film, documentary, etc.

Congratulating FTII for its various contributions to India’s film industry, acclaimed Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, urged Government of India to launch more such world class cinema training centers to channelize India’s enormous talent and to compete in global market. With speedily changing film making techniques, graduates from such institutes would be better equipped to handle tomorrow’s filmmaking, Rajan Zed, who is chairperson of Indo-American Leadership Confederation, pointed out.

ENDS