and ftii features among the top five it has an identity of its own it offers an atmosphere of freedom to each student to learn agreeing with narains take that the institute offers a creative utopia kulkarni says we need that kind of utopia we cant be learning about filmmaking while thinking about practicality filmmakers are not machines they are artistes first nowadays many film institutes boasting of deep pockets that allow them to buy stateoftheart equipment and hire big names are cropping up across the country but narain sounds confident that ftii will always be a frontrunner true we cannot offer our faculty the kind of salary a private institute will ours is a governmentrun institute the faculty comes here not because of the money they leave highpaying jobs to come down and teach filmmaking here it is what we offer in terms of student quality raw talent and the sheer passion for the movies that draws them he says many relate the film institute with just good filmmakers or maybe actors what people often dont realise is that the institute almost has a monopoly where technique is concerned the best technicians in the business from cinematographers to editors to sound designers come from ftii think resul pookutty a m padmanabhan santosh sivan anil mehta binod pradhan and of course prominent editors who went on to become successful filmmakers sanjay leela bhansali rajkumar hirani and many more says kulkarni of the 12 students in my batch 10 have already made their feature films ftii equips us for the movie business though it does take time to judge and adapt to the atmosphere outside campus he goes on to add that a dedicated course in production will be a valueaddition for ftii and it would help students who then would be wellprepared to grapple with the market psyche that is so inherent to filmmakingprominent acting students who have made a mark divyendu sharma featured in pyar ka punchnama and now a part of the remake of chasme baddoor by david dhawan jaideep ahlawat last seen in gangs of wasseypur i and chittagong plays a major role in kamal haasans vishwaroopam rajkumar yadav love sex and dhokha ragini mms gangs of wasseypur ii chittagong talaash and now a part of shaheed and kai po che pitobash tripathy 3 idiots mirch shor in the city i am kalam joker shanghai to be seen next in once upon a time in mumbai 2students who have made a mark as writers pubali chaudhary rock on abhijit deshpande shaitan megha ramaswamy shaitan saurabh bhave haapusftii grad earns laurels an ftii grad currently making waves in local as well as international film festivals is fimmaker umesh vinayak kulkarni before gaining global acclaim with fulllength feature films like valu vihir and deool he had already won over critics and filmlovers alike with his shortlength films like girni three of us and gaarud most of his films