FTII plans week-long film appreciation course in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune will conduct a week-long film appreciation course in Bhubaneswar as part of the institute’s nationwide programme to popularise film learning.

The film appreciation course in Bhubaneswar will provide a unique opportunity to the cine lovers of Odisha to understand cinema from one of the world’s leading film schools, the Director of FTII, Pune, Bhupendra Kainthola said.

The film appreciation course, to begin from February 14 will be conducted for the first time in Orissa, an official release said.

“Orissa has a film industry that goes back over 75 years and is still a robust one. As part of the FTII’s ongoing nation-wide programme to popularise film learning, a week-long film appreciation course has been designed for Bhubaneswar,” Kainthola said.

For over five decades, film appreciation was just a once a year course, conducted only in Pune and this made little sense for a country with a rich cinematic history and millions of cinema lovers, he said.

“Therefore FTII embarked on a mission to promote cinema literacy through film appreciation courses across the country, making film education accessible and affordable,” he said.

In the last nine months, the FTII has conducted film appreciation courses in Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Delhi, Jaipur, Guwahati, Srinagar (J&K), Haridwar and Srinagar (Uttarakhand).

Though the film appreciation course in Bhubaneswar will be open to all, only 100 participants will be admitted on a first-come-first-served basis, and it will be held at the Museum of Tribal Arts & Crafts.

The course will be conducted by renowned film academic Pankaj Saxena, an FTII alumnus, who is a filmmaker and TV programmer based in New Delhi, it said.