FTII Wisdom Tree

It has been brought to the notice of the Film and Television Institute of India Students’ Association that the integrity of the FTII Entrance Test 2025-2026 has been compromised across multiple exam centres. FTII Students' Association vehemently condemns the gross misconduct and mismanagement that have been reported and documented, and ensures the cooperation of the entire student body at FTII to bring a fair resolution to this matter.

To facilitate effective communication and the documentation of candidate grievances, FTIISA is opening a student helpline. We request the candidates to remain calm while the issue is understood better, and connect with any of the helpline contacts from the students’ side to report any issue or raise any concern regarding the entrance test.

Ajmal Shah K U - 8113989540
Masoom Rana Dewan - 8293610068
Rahul Kaushik - 8209324733
Tanushka Sarde - 7083580209

FTIISA congratulates the entire team of Shadows of a Moonless Night on their selection at La Cinef, Festival de Cannes. Helmed by student director Mehar Malhotra from the 2020 batch, this achievement marks yet another significant moment for student filmmaking at FTII.

While this is a moment of jubilation, it also lays bare the institutional injustice faced by the 2020 batch. This was perhaps the only batch in FTII’s history to be stripped of all coordinated exercises, leaving the diploma film practically as their only major exercise, through decisions that were not only arbitrary but deeply punitive in nature. The deeply incompetent administration, lacking any grounding in cinema, of that period must be unequivocally called out for its vengeful and short-sighted approach, which severely disrupted the academic and artistic life of the batch. Such actions reflected an attitude dismissive of artistic practice and fundamentally out of step with the ethos of a film school.

We expect that no future batch at FTII suffers as the 2020 batch did at the hands of individuals with malafide intent occupying administrative positions. Art thrives in freedom, and the success of Mehar’s film stands as a testament to that.

The FTII Students' Association condemns the passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill. It undermines the dignity, autonomy, and constitutional protections guaranteed to transgender persons and is inconsistent with the principal act. The bill violates the spirit of the Supreme Court’s 2014 NALSA Judgement that recognised transgender persons as equal citizens with the right to self-identification, gender-affirming care, and dignity.

On 29th March, members of the student body engaged in conversation with q***r and trans comrades to discuss the context under which this bill has been hastily passed. The discussion also opened up to how the same power structures keep controlling different marginalized groups, connecting workers' rights and q***r rights in a broader struggle.

At 9 AM on 2nd March, 2026, The FTII Student Body gathered at the Wisdom Tree to demonstrate against the administration's decision to include Milind Damle in the new Interim Academic Council, as well as the vague nature of student representation in the Council. Students raised slogans, sang and rapped protest songs, placed banners and held up placards around the heart of FTII to make their feelings known to the administration.

The student community read out excerpts from the letters and documents in the archives of the Students' Association to reaffirm their conviction and to trace the history of resistance in this space. This included handwritten letters from Mani Kaul (dated 1997), from Mrinal Sen (dated 2000), and previous communications from 1987 between the FTII Students’ Association and the Administration at the time.

The protest culminated in the Vice-Chancellor having to address the gathered Student Body and answer for manner of decisions taken. The VC conceded to the demand put forth by the Community.

Following that, we convened and decided to plant ourselves at Wisdom Tree until the same was expressed to us in writing. The demonstration lasted until 7 PM, when the FTII Students' Association was intimated of a reconstituted Academic Council.

The FTII Students' Association and Student Community will continue fighting for the rights of students. Student Unity Long Live!

CENSORSHIP DIRECTED AT FILM SCHOOLS IS CENSORSHIP DIRECTED AT THE FUTURE OF INDIAN CINEMA.

The Film and Television Institute of India Students’ Association (FTIISA) strongly condemns the decision of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting to deny screening exemption to Da’ Lit Kids, a student animated short film produced at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), for its screening at the Animela Animation Festival in Mumbai.

FTIISA stands in solidarity with the makers of the film, students, and faculty of SRFTI. We demand that the denial of screening exemption to Da' Lit Kids be reconsidered immediately.

FTII Students' Association organised the Ghatak Centenary Programme on 9th, 10th and 11th January 2026. For three days, the campus involved itself in questions of politics, history, form, and collective memory to engage critically with Ghatak's cinema, as well as the cinema of our times.

Beginning with a screening of Ajantrik, and over 12 other screenings, debates, and discussions later, the FTII community questioned ideas of an Indian cinema, of contextualising our stories, and of new modalities of the filmmaking process.

The FTII Students' Association is organising a Ghatak Centenary Programme on 9th, 10th and 11th January, 2026.

We invite you to engage critically with Ghatak’s cinema, his pedagogical presence, and his lasting association with the Institute.

This event will attempt to engage with questions of form, history, politics and collective memory that remain central to Ghatak’s work, to the idea of India as it exists and to the idea of FTII as an institution of film education.

We'll update with a schedule soon!

PRESS RELEASE

FTIISA to Organise Ghatak Centenary Programme at the Institute

The Film and Television Institute of India Students’ Association (FTIISA) will organise a three day Ghatak Centenary Programme from 9 to 11 January 2026 at the Institute, marking one hundred years of Ritwik Ghatak, among the most consequential filmmakers and film teachers in the history of Indian cinema.

Conceived as a cultural initiative, the programme seeks to engage critically with Ghatak’s cinema, his pedagogical practices and his continued relevance to film education and alternative cinematic traditions. Rather than functioning only as a commemorative gesture, the centenary foregrounds Ghatak’s work as a vital and contested reference for thinking through questions of cinematic form, history, politics and evolving practices in the present moment.

Across three days, the programme will bring together curated screenings and interactive sessions with contemporary practitioners and relevant resource persons working within parallel and alternative film practices. Students, faculty, alumni, filmmakers and members of wider film and cultural networks are expected to participate in these deliberations, collectively reflecting on Ghatak’s enduring influence on cinematic thought and practice.

The programme also coincides with the arrival of the new batch at the Institute and is envisioned as a collective moment marking their entry into the cultural life of FTII. The centenary also functions as a reaffirmation of the idea of FTII itself, its cinematic practices, its commitment to critical and alternative modes of filmmaking, and the formative role Ghatak played in shaping its intellectual and pedagogical legacy.

Further details regarding the programme schedule and participants will be announced in due course.

You can reach out to us at - [email protected]

Issued by - FTIISA

Updated Statement Against the I&B Ministry’s Withholding of Film Clearance for IFFK

The Film and Television Institute of India Students’ Association (FTIISA) unequivocally condemns the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting’s deliberate withholding of screening exemptions for multiple films at the International Film Festival of Kerala. IFFK is not a peripheral cultural event; it is one of the very few remaining public spaces in the country where cinema exists beyond commercial diktats and ideological surveillance. To obstruct its screenings through bureaucratic denial is an act of cultural vandalism and an unmistakable assertion of state control over artistic circulation.

Film consumption in India has already been hollowed out by a market-driven exhibition system and platform economies that privilege conformity over inquiry. Festivals like IFFK survive precisely because they resist this narrowing of cinematic experience. The denial of exemptions to films such as Battleship Potemkin, The Hour of the Furnaces, Bamako, and multiple films from Palestine exposes the political nature of this intervention. The targeting of Palestinian cinema in particular reveals how geopolitical allegiance and ideological discomfort are now being allowed to determine what Indian audiences are permitted to see. This is not regulation; it is censorship by omission.

The I&B Ministry’s actions reflect a profound cinematic illiteracy among those occupying positions of cultural authority. The inability to distinguish between certification for commercial release and exemptions for curated festival screenings signals a deeper hostility towards cinema as a critical and historical practice. When film festivals are treated as threats rather than sites of cultural exchange, the state reveals its fear of cinema’s capacity to think, remember, and dissent.

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Statement Against the CBFC’s Withholding of Film Certification for IFFK

The Film and Television Institute of India Students’ Association (FTIISA) unequivocally condemns the denial of clearance to multiple films scheduled for screening at the International Film Festival of Kerala. IFFK is one of the very few remaining public spaces in the country where audiences can encounter independent, political, and historically significant cinema outside the stranglehold of commercial exhibition. To obstruct such a festival is not an administrative lapse but a clear act of state censorship.

Film consumption in India has been systematically narrowed by market forces and ideological intervention. A distribution and exhibition system dominated by multiplex capital and platform algorithms has reduced cinema to spectacle and compliance, while dissenting, formally rigorous, and politically challenging works are increasingly pushed out of public view. Film festivals like IFFK exist precisely to resist this erosion. The refusal to screen films such as Battleship Potemkin, The Hour of the Furnaces, and Bamako must be seen within a broader pattern of cultural control, where critical cinema is obstructed even as state-aligned, revisionist, and propaganda-driven films are actively promoted and normalised.

The actions of the CBFC reveal a deep cinematic illiteracy among those occupying positions of cultural and regulatory authority. An institution incapable of distinguishing between censorship and curation, or between public exhibition and cultural exchange, has abdicated its responsibility to cinema and to the public. When regulatory bodies function as ideological gatekeepers rather than facilitators of access, they undermine the democratic function of art and culture.

FTIISA welcomes all freshers to the campus.

To help you through the admission process and the first days at FTII, we have set up an admission help desk. Please feel free to reach out using the contact details below for any queries, guidance, or support you may need.

Amritanshu, President
+919717458011
Ajmal, General Secretary
+918113989540
Kanika,Treasurer
+918178223797
Rahul, Boys Hostel Secretary
+918209324733
Tanushka, Girls Hostel Secretary
+917083580209
Masoom, Academic Secretary Film
+918293610068
Arunasish, Academic Secretary TV
+917076339206

Regards,
FTIISA