Lucknow: Under the aegis of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, a five-day Film Appreciation Course is being organised in Lucknow from 26–30 December at Vijayant Khand, Gomti Nagar. The Film Appreciation Course is one of FTII’s oldest and most renowned programmes. Senior cinema lovers in Lucknow still remember the celebrated late Satish Bahadur, whose course elaborated on the nuances of cinema and to films from around the world.
During the inauguration of the recently held Lucknow Short Film Festival, FTII Vice-Chancellor Dhiraj Singh, who had come from Pune, had assured a strengthened FTII presence in the state. Speaking about the upcoming course, the Vice-Chancellor said, “At the Lucknow Short Film Festival, the people of Lucknow demonstrated a clear understanding of and love for good cinema. Lucknow is an ideal place for FTII’s short courses. FTII has high ambitions for Uttar Pradesh, and this Appreciation Course is the first but a powerful step in that direction.”
The Film Appreciation Course aims to cultivate a perspective that allows participants to experience cinema with a deeper understanding of its pleasures and impact. The course will discuss various dimensions of cinema in detail—how a film travels from script to screen, how the language of cinema becomes a vehicle for profound emotions, and how legendary figures have contributed to the evolution of film. It will also shed light on the direction and state of different cinematic genres.
For this course, FTII has appointed a strong team comprising Professor Indranil Bhattacharya, Head of the Films Studies Department, and Professor Milind Damle, a pillar in Direction education and Short Courses at the Institute.
The course fee is ₹7,000 per participant, and for defence personnel, ex-servicemen, and their families, the fee is ₹5,000. Admission details are available on FTII’s website under Offline Short Courses:
https://ftii.ac.in/p/vtwa/basic-course-in-film-appreciation-in-lucknow-26-30-december-2025
FTII is one of India’s most reputed film education institutes, and its alumni include actors such as Shatrughan Sinha, Jaya Bhaduri, Danny Denzongpa, Mithun Chakraborty, Rajkummar Rao, Jaideep Ahlawat, and Vijay Varma, as well as directors such as Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and Rajkumar Hirani. FTII alumnus Resul Pookutty has also won an Oscar for Sound.
