Over the next ten days at IIT-M, 155 chosen students will get to learn the basics of screenwriting from some of the best academicians in the country during the day and watch films with the directors and writers behind them every other evening.
Imagine watching “Dumm Maro Dumm” with Rohan Sippy, “Agent Vinod” with Sriram Raghavan, “Khakee” with Shridhar Raghavan or “Shor in the City” with Krish DK (who made the film with Raj Nidimoru) or spending an evening with Habib Faisal discussing “Do Dooni Chaar” and “Ishaqzaade”.
“I am very happy but also a little angry with IITs. IITs should have been the bedrock for film education in this country because films are a marriage of art and technology. It is high time film education is given more priority,” says K. Hariharan, director of L.V. Prasad Film School on the eve of the workshop.
Professor Chella Rajan, head of the department of Humanities that hosts the workshop, says, “This year the workshop will cover the ‘Magic of Cinema' where we will try to deconstruct the magic and grammar of cinema and then deal with the ‘Mechanics of Cinema' where we will look at the nuts and bolts of filmmaking.”
Atul Tiwari (who wrote the Hindi dialogues for Kamal Haasan's “Vishwaroop” and “Dashavatar”) adds, “In the third part of the workshop, we will get into the ‘Method of Cinema' and explore the method behind the madness. After the method, comes the ‘Making of Cinema' where the students are given cameras to go and make films within 48 hours. And finally, we have the ‘Majesty of Cinema' where we will screen all the films made during the workshop. Like any art, film cannot be taught but it can be learnt.”
P. Sriram, the dean of administration, IIT-M, inaugurated the workshop on Thursday evening.
“We got over a 1000 applications but were able to accommodate only 155. So we selected candidates on the basis of the merit of their applications,” says Aysha Iqbal, workshop organiser.
