FTII ex-pupils to ‘celebrate dissent’ with dalit activist

Panaji: Revolutionary balladeer, singer and Dalit activist, Sambhaji Bhagat who was also the music composer for Chaitanya Tamhane’s film Court, India’s official entry to this year’s Oscars will join ex-FTII students at Nossa Senhora de Piedade Institute, Panaji on Friday evening as they organize an evening of dance, music, song, discussions, talks and video presentations.
After receiving support from local, outstation and international films lovers, film makers, activists, lawyers and students for their two day rebel film festival, FTII students will continue their protest on Friday by organizing ‘Celebrating Dissent’, an interactive evening where veteran filmmaker Saeed Mirza who has also served as chairman of FTII will be the key note speaker, enlightening people on ‘Dissent- The necessary fuel of art’. A video screening on ‘A Film about a puppet show’ will be held and students from FTII will talk about their five month long protest. Nandita Haskar, eminent human rights lawyer, will speak about the misuse of law to silence dissent and award winning filmmaker Rakesh Sharma will hold a master class on censorship as a tool for suppressing dissent. The highlight of the evening will be Sambhaji Bhagat who is known not to ‘entertain’ but to ‘disturb’.
The students were offended that the Directorate of Film Festival (DFF) dropped the students’ film package from the 46th edition of Iffi.