Shyam Benegal heads the academic council, Naseeruddin Shah heads the acting course while Hema Malini and Shiamak Davar will teach classical and contemporary dance, respectively.
Institute will start training students in acting, direction, scripting and production
“I struggled for several years in Bombay to discover my true potential. Along the way, I discovered that I could be an actor, writer, filmmaker and now, an educationist,” said Subhash Ghai, whose film institute Whistling Woods International (WWI) will throw its doors open to Bollywood aspirants on Tuesday.
Spread across 20 acres at Film City in Goregaon, the institute will train students in the technical and creative aspects of filmmaking, including acting, direction, scripting and production.
“WWI will act as a stepping stone for those keen on making inroads into the world of television, films and animation,” Ghai said.
With 26 classrooms, a library and several studios, the five-storeyed WWI is keen to live up to its claim of being world-class. The list of faculty and board members reads like the cast from one of Ghai’s multi-starrers.
Shyam Benegal heads the academic council, Naseeruddin Shah heads the acting course while Hema Malini and Shiamak Davar will teach classical and contemporary dance, respectively. The advisory board has Shah Rukh Khan, Shabana Azmi, Ashutosh Gowariker and Karan Johar.
All of them will train the task force that Bollywood will eventually hire. “My only grouse is why the institute wasn’t set up when I started out as a filmmaker,” said Gowariker. The enterprise has taken six years and several crores to come up. Students will have to shell out Rs12 lakh for a two-year diploma course - they will also get priority when Ghai’s production house signs on fresh talent.
“There is a new energy on celluloid today. We now need an influx of new talent. WWI will tap and cultivate all aspects of creativity in its students,” said Johar.
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