City Pulse owner to set up film institute

The film industry in Gujarat is likely to heave some breather if the plans of setting up a institute by City Pulse owner Ashok Purohit with a tie-up with Subhash Ghai's Whistling Woods International are realised.

Subhash Ghai who was in the city on Saturday, while talking to Business Standard, said, "Purohit has approached me for setting up an audio-visual institute in Gandhinagar and I have agreed to it. This may be our franchise in Gandhinagar in which student will make future in film industry and may also foray in making Gujarati films. We are working out a plan of accomplishing it."

The preliminary course will begin by December end this year and by June 2007 we plan to start full-fledge course at the institute, said Purohit.

"We have roped in an expert who is currently a consultant in NID, Hyderabad. He will join the institute full time from July 1 and will help design the shape of things to come," Purohit added.

The new institute will be set up at City Pulse, where there is a lot of space to be utilised, he said. Ghai also unveiled his dream project Whistling Woods International (WWI), based in Mumbai and promoted by Mukta Arts, a first of its kind "� the largest film, television and media arts institute in Asia, all set to commence its first academic year in couple of months.

According to Ghai, it will provide training across all technical and creative aspects of film making and television and animation in its first phase with regular two years intensive hands on training and develop a research and development centre in software.

While Naserrudin Shah will head the department of acting, Vijay Tendulkar and Anjum Rajabali will teach screeplay course. Rajal Kothari has been roped in for cinematography.

For the batch starting from July 15, the institue has received 1200 applications. "We will take 125 students per batch with fees of Rs 5.5 lakh per year in the two year diploma course," said Ghai adding that Mukta Arts has invested around Rs 60 crore for the establishment of the institute.

"WWI will act as a stepping stone for anyone who wants to make inroads into the world of television, cinema and animation," said Ghai. The institute has technology partnerships in place with Apple, Sony, Digidesign, AMD, NVIDIA, Belden, and many more.

For the batch starting from July 15, the institue has received 1200 applications. "We will take 125 students per batch with fees of Rs 5.5 lakh per year in the two year diploma course," said Ghai adding that Mukta Arts has invested around Rs 60 crore for the establishment of the institute.

"At Whistling Woods International, we have the biggest library in the world with over 7,000 audio-visuals," said Ghai.