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

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.

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

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.