pune an introductory course on cinema curating inaugurated at the film and television of india ftii on monday is aimed at creating professionallytrained curators of the medium who are wellversed in selection and packaging of film festivals cinema curating is an emerging specialised field in the west given the growing number of film festivals in pune and the country we feel the need to have curators who have sound knowledge of film studies theory technical knowhow and the ability to network effectively to source and offer a diverse range of cinema that is gaining foothold in the country said course coordinator indranil bhattacharya the course which will go on till march 29 will cover topics like film curating as an idea and curatorial practices cultural context in film curating debates in film history and theory relevant to the curator research writing and building networks experts covering these aspects include italian filmmaker italo spinelli art critic girish shahane moinak biswas from the film studies department of the jadavpur university kolkata author of encyclopedia of indian cinema ashish rajadhyaksha film critic and curator meenakshi shedde filmmaker and curator deepa dhanraj founderexecutive director of majlis a centre for rights discourse and interdisciplinary art initiatives in mumbai madhushree dutta and former ftii faculty suresh chhabria and gayatri chatterjee film festivals are taking place in every nook and corner of our country and virtual festivals are being held online this has created a demand for trained experts who have a crossdisciplined knowledge of cinema the economics of film production film history distribution networks how film festivals work filmmaking methodology and networking with film festival bodies and archives this course is meant to make the participants aware that theres a science and art behind cinema curating it empowers them to select films for a festival in an informed manner in the west universities offer twoyear fulltime courses in film curating unlike in india where not a single such course exists currently bhattacharya said cinema curating is all about programming a film festival with necessary scholarship skills biswas said today theres a proliferation of cinemarelated activities online and offline this requires a professional approach in terms of having a welltrained curator onboard curating has largely remained restricted to the visual arts in our country curating in cinema requires careful selection and presentation of films with suitable information also there is a dearth of qualified curators in india as most of the film festivals here are put together by festival programmers he added participant anindya shankar das a thirdyear direction student at ftii said as a filmmakerintraining the cinema curating course is enriching me as im learning more about the process of sourcing and ordering films and film preservation among other things the course is also an attempt to kick off the ftiis maiden faculty development programme we hope to see this course becoming a regular feature at the institute it was introduced keeping in mind the demand from the inhouse faculty and students who want