As per a statement from the Students of Screen Acting and Documentary Cinema at FTII Itanagar, India’s third national film institute, their Second Semester is yet to commence due to an unfinished campus. “We have already lost a full academic semester in a collapsed academic environment,” they allege. Screen Acting students state they can no longer accept academic instruction in the current setup, as core camera-acting pedagogy and proper acting spaces are still unavailable. “We have already lost one semester of specialised training. We will not allow the remaining three to be ruined.”
FTII Itanagar was promised to be a state-of-the-art national institute, however, as on date students were made to study in a building still under construction- with no functional studios, no preview theatre, faulty classrooms, limited cameras, no sound studio, inefficient medical support, and no access to basic human needs.
Students say they submitted multiple letters to SRFTI Kolkata and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting since December 2024, repeatedly highlighting severe academic compromise. They also undertook two academic halts in March and May 2025 due to these same unresolved issues. Every time they resumed, based on promises of quick development- nothing changed on ground. In fact, after classes resumed in August, all infrastructural work stopped completely, and the Ministry did not intervene.
Recent RTI documents and official communication between SRFTI and the Ministry now admit that the campus is still not complete and cannot admit new students in 2025. Admissions have been paused due to lack of infrastructure.
“If the institute is officially unfit for future students today, why were we admitted last year when the situation was worse?” ask the students adding they were being used as experimental subjects in a prematurely launched institution. The students stress that they are not opposing the institute, they are trying to save it. “We are the first batch of FTII Itanagar. We refuse to be the forgotten batch.”
Students demand the Ministry and SRFTI to respond in writing with: Acknowledgment of all concerns, time-bound action plan, proper meeting with student representatives, real infrastructure and not makeshift excuses, immediate relocation if deadlines fail again.
