The Film and Television Institute of India, Pune is set toget unprecedented mileage during the on-going International Film Festival ofIndia .This has a special significance particularly when the nation iscelebrating the centenary of Indian Cinema.
Apart from the two diploma films, Afterglow (Kaushal Oza)and Allah is Great (Andrea Iannetta) selected for the non-feature section ofIndian Panorama, FTII will find its representation strong in this internationalevent.
For the second year consecutively, IFFI has a specialsection for FTII films. This section will feature five films made during thecurrent year. These films will be screened in 35mm format on November 25.Besides, GRAFTII, an association of graduates of FTII will screen some 55recent student films. This will include a number of student’s films which havewon accolades at national and international film festivals and similar events.Udedh Bun (Siddhartha Sinha) which has won Silver Bear at the 58th BerlinInternational Film Festival, 2008. Aadmi ki Aurat Tatha Anya Kahaniyania (AmitDutta) was honoured with Special Mention in the competition section of Horizon(Orizzonti Section) - 66th Venice International Film Festival held inSeptember, 2009. Vaishnav Jan Toh...(Kaushal Oza), second year Dialogueexercise, had bagged the Best Student Film, Short Fiction, (Gold) Award ofIndian Documentary Producers' Association (IDPA) in 2009.
Another interesting feature of this section is films byfemale students of FTII. Rizwan (Deepti Khurana) has won Special Jury Mentionat the 5th International Short and Documentary Film Festival of Kerala heldlast June. Saanjh (Jasmine Kaur, National Award for Best film on FamilyWelfare), Dhin Tak Dha (Shraddha Pasi), Shyam Raat Seher (Arunima Sharma, BestCinematography National Award and PIFF), Echoes of Silence (Reema Borah,National Award Best Music), Punah (Ganga Mukhi), Hazy Grey Skies (PriyaBelliappa), Rain Drops on a Tin Roof (Neelanjana Borthakur), The SolitarySandpiper (Ajita Suchitraveera), Shankarnama (Tanushree Das/Saurabh Shankar).
Some of the films selected for screening like Kramasha (AmitDutta), Spandan (Shailesh Dupare), Undertakers (Emmanuel Palo) are consideredas classic FTII films now. Apart from films made in Hindi and English, thissection also highlights some of the best films made in other Indian languagesfor example, Kaatal (Marathi, Vikrant Pawar), Ekti Kaktaliyo Golpo (Bengali,Tathagat Singha) and Vadhakramam (K. M. Kamal). This section also includesworks by students who have made a thrust as professional filmmakers in theIndian entertainment industry. This category includes ‘Three of Us’ and‘Gaarud’ by Umesh Kulkarni who after passing from the Institute has made threefeature films in Marathi. Also, ‘When This Man Dies’ by Arun Sukumar who hasrecently directed a commercial Hindi film for Rajshri Productions.
