Did you know that distinguished filmmaker Mani Kaul acted in a film, that too, along with Subhash Ghai and Asrani? Now guess who directed it? Malayalam director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, doyen of India’s independent cinema movement. Anything is possible at the Film and Television Institute (FTII, Pune); this happened during Gopalakrishnan’s diploma film Light (1965). This is one of the many gems in Being FTII: Perspectives on the Film and Television Institute of India, a coffee table book commemorating the institute’s diamond jubilee, celebrating 60 years. There are more gems—Subhash Ghai claims to be the blue-eyed boy of, hold your breath, Ritwik Ghatak. And Sriram Raghavan tells us of British director David Lean visiting FTII: his wife Leila Matkar (Wife No. 4 of his six wives, wow!) had family in Kolhapur and brought him to the institute. Your jaw keeps dropping, and you have to keep collecting it from the floor.

Established in 1960, the FTII is, of course, India’s premier institution for teaching film and TV, famous worldwide. Its alumni are legion, and films by its students and alumni are at festivals worldwide, as well as at the box office. I have an old connection with FTII: I did the film appreciation course (FAC) there in 1992, and have returned a number of times as guest lecturer for the FAC. In fact, I was to conduct a course on Curating Films for Film Festivals on campus in April 2020, but COVID-19 forced us to rethink the plan. Being FTII is edited by Amit Tyagi, FTII Dean, Films, 2016-18; the project coordinator is Film Research Officer Dr Debjani Halder, with design by Vikram Varma. FTII Director Bhupendra Kainthola led the project, published by the Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.