Pune: A film appreciation course (FA), the first of its kind ever in the Kashmir Valley, is now underway in Srinagar. A highlight of the Kashmir FA course is the screening of this year’s National Award-winning Marathi film Kaasav followed by a discussion with Sumitra Bhave, Director and 
8-time National Award-winner and Irawati Harshe, the film’s lead actor.

The 5-day programme is being held in association with the Media Education Research Centre (MERC) of University of Kashmir. Over 100 participants have enrolled for the course. The aim of the course is to give participants the fundamentals of watching and understanding films. 

The FA course was inaugurated in Srinagar recently by Khurshid Andrabi, Vice Chancellor, University of Kashmir and Bhupendra Kainthola, Director, FTII Pune in the presence of  Faruq Masudi, Coordinator MERC, Pankaj Saxena, Course Director, Munish Bhardwaj, Asst Course Director and Prof Sandeep Shahare, National Coordinator, SKIFT. 

Welcoming FTII’s initiative towards promoting film education, Andrabi said the University of Kashmir looks forward to skill-oriented courses as this creates newer and creative opportunities for the youth. In his address, Kainthola said the film appreciation course is FTII’s concerted effort to promote cinematic literacy in a place which though a choice destination for film shootings, lacks a robust film culture. 

Joint efforts
† This is also the first time that Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune has joined hands with three other premier institutions of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Govt of India) - National Film Archive of India (NFAI) Pune, Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) New Delhi and Films Division (FD) Mumbai, to conduct an FA course. FTII has recently conducted two FA courses in Delhi and one in Mumbai. On July 26, an FA course is planned in Jaipur, in August in Haridwar and in Guwahati, Assam in September.