FTII students show their class

A festival of diploma films reveals an impressive range of cinematic expressions, says Saibal Chatterjee

Punha yet another day, directed by Ganga M. Mukhi, is about the struggle for survival of an old village vendor

These", says U.R. Ananthamurthy, Jnanpith award-winning writer and chairman of the Film and Television Institute India Society, "are our best young talents." Once you’ve seen the nine diploma films screened at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, on May Day as part of a festival titled Lensight, there is no way you can dispute that claim.

In terms of the audacious complexity of the themes addressed and the impressive maturity of styles attempted, these short fiction films, culled out from among the best FTII diploma films of 2004-05, contain evidence of saplings endowed with the potential of growing into giant trees.

Consider the sheer variety on show. Amit Dutta’s Kshya Tra Ghya (X Y Z) is a delightfully quirky and stylised tribute to India’s storytelling traditions presented as a series of visual and aural riddles. Dheeraj Singh’s Aadi Aarambh is a wonderfully nuanced exploration of memories and forebodings. Shilpi Dasgupta’s Sanshodhan is an emotionally affecting study of deep-rooted social prejudices and courageous individual efforts to overcome them. Jasmine Kaur’s Saanjh presents a lonely old man on the verge of senility.

These diploma films, available on a double DVD pack for home viewing, are full of visual and ideational riches. Also in the screening schedule were Ganga Mukhi’s Punha, Umesh Kulkarni’s Girni, Pankaj Purandare’s Dwijaa, and Manisha Dwivedi’s Saankal. Many of these films have won awards at the national and international levels, besides making it to the Indian Panorama.

Lensight, the festival of the FTII diploma films, is a new initiative. Says Tripurari Sharan, director of the institute: "The FTII is India’s premier film school and the diploma films made by our students travel to different parts of the world. They are, however, never seen in the national capital. Hence this festival."

In a year in which an Indian film student Anirban Dutta of the Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute made history by breaking into the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, it is only apt that the FTII has made the move to recognise the first filmic forays of its alumni.

In addition to the recent diploma films, the FTII has also just released another double DVD set of 20 films made by some of the more talented students that have passed through its portals in the past 40 years. This DVD contains diploma films made by the likes of Vidhu Vinod Chopra (Murder on Monkey Hill), Girish Kasaravalli (Awashesh), Arun Khopkar (Teevra Madhyam) and Kundan Shah (Bonga). On the DVD are films featuring the likes of Jaya Bhaduri, Smita Patil and Shatrughan Sinha, among many others, in the first roles of their careers.

"We have no dearth of wonderful films to choose from," says Sharan.

"We will release more such films on DVDs in the future."

The best thing about a student film is its youthful freshness. Says Ananthamurthy: "I have seen Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s diploma effort. It is one of my personal favourites. It is full of self-deprecatory humour." Indeed, as aspiring filmmaker Dhiraj Meshram, whose Oadh was screened in the Lensight festival, points out, these diploma films capture the essence of "all that we have learnt at the institute and all that we are about".

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