Film and Television Institute of India,

Law College Road,

Pune: 411004

12/10/2017 Pune

To,
Mr. Anupam Kher

Dear Sir,

You might be busy taking congratulatory messages, we would also like to bring your
attention to the following issues persisting in the iconic institute that you will be
heading as the chairman. We are also curious to know your take on these:

- FTII, the premier film institute of the country started ideally to impart learning
on different aspects of filmmaking is now slowly being turned into an institute that
runs short term crash courses for generation of funds. We sincerely believe that the
short term courses being run cant impart knowledge on film making in such a short
duration . For instance the new course Short Course in Fiction Writing for
Television is being run for 20 days and a student is being charged Rs 20,000 which
is very expensive for such a short term course and also for students from certain
sections of the society. A government institute that exists to provide education to
students from all sections shouldnt be driven by the agenda of funds generation
which currently seems to be the aim of such short term courses which has also been
the case with government institutes/universities across the nation.

- Over the past one year the administration has spent lavish amount of money
on events such as Open day , Foundation day . We as students believe that the
amount of money being spent on lights, erecting set pieces in front of the campus
can be spent on the infrastructure and in buying and repairing equipments which
would only help us in finishing our projects on time.

- The new syllabus(CBCSS) brought in place has its issues like workshops
and classes being cut down from the syllabus during the course of the semester
arbitrarily , confusion existing even among faculties on the new credit based system .
It has been a year since the syllabus has been in place so a proper audit of the new
syllabus has to be done and such issues need to be rectified. Also the entire syllabus
has to be handed to the students at the time of admission which hasnt been done by
the administration so far.
 - All the light-men are contractual labours now who used to be permanent
once.The institute runs on 5 days a week. There are enough instances when they
had worked for 6 or 7 days a week. In case of a 6th day at times the light-men are
not paid currently.

- Like growing culture of having only contractual faculties in the universities/

institutes across the country, FTII also have mostly Contractual faculties. They cant
get access of the benefits like a permanent faculty does. They are also working in
such an environment where they have this constant fear of being sacked anytime if
they dont follow the administration. The faculties and staffs in the institute are not
even getting salaries on time. There has been instances where their salaries have
been delayed for 3 months. The institute does not have enough number of faculties
to run the courses, and because of this the implementation of syllabus is getting
affected.

- Students are being forced to sign undertakings to finish their courses on

time; on the other hand, administration is not providing the necessary resources
which are essential to finish their projects on time.

- Limitations have been brought into exercise norms as part of the new
syllabus like, the norms brought in place for the dialogue exercise in 2nd year.These
limitations are logistically not feasible, like the 3-day 8 hour shift being reduced to a
2-day 12 hour shift which would be exhausting and also inhuman to force the light
men, carpenters, painters, make-up artist and actors to work at such stretch. Also
this being the first co-ordinated exercise in a studio, students should be given
enough time as primarily the students learning aspect should be prioritised rather
than looking to finish off the exercise in a haste. When we the students questioned
this new norm change we were responded with that the norms would remain the
same and then when it was decided that the students would boycott the exercise 5
students were suspended without any show cause notice.

- In February,2017 the students association received a mail saying it has been

decided in the governing council that the student representatives would be excluded
from discussions pertaining to issues such as academics, syllabus, discipline, fee
structure, staff and faculties and administration in the academic council
meeting.Considering the fact that the students are the primary stakeholders and
voting members in the academic council this move to exclude the student
representatives is unconstitutional.
 - FTII has been producing filmmakers who are working at various platforms.
Some choose to work in industry and others find alternate ways. But students at
various instances have been asked to look at industry practice where cinema is just
being looked at as a commodity and not as an art form which serves the larger
human cause.

Thank You

Robin Joy Rohit Kumar

(President) (Gen. Secretary)

Students Association, FTII

Youtube- ftiistudentsbody@gmail.com,
https://www.facebook.com/pages/FTII-Wisdom-Tree