Ronita Torcato

Dharmendra Jai Narain, has been appointed as the Director of the Film & Television Institute of India, Pune.  He succeeds Pankaj Rag, who was the Director of FTII till recently, a press note issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) Govt of India, said.

Popularly known as D J Narain, the new FTII Director is an officer of the 1990 batch of the Indian Information Service and comes to FTII with a  experience in administration, management, media communication and performing arts.  Prior to this assignment, Narain was the Officer on Special Duty at the Song & Drama Division of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in New Delhi. During this stint, he  produced ‘Jamunia’, a mega sound and light stage show  spotlighting women's empowerment.  Four shows of Jamunia  were recently staged in Amravati,Maharashtra.

 An alumnus of IIT, Kanpur, Narain's connection with FTII dates back to 1993, when he did a short course in film and television production as  part of his IIS training.  Besides being a career civil service officer, Narain takes keen interest in music and is lead singer-cum-composer with  the popular Indi-pop rock band ‘Aryans’ which has published five albums and played over 800 concerts.

Narain said, " FTII  students and faculty need to be communicated to effectively and my efforts to achieve our objectives will be second to none.”

Established in  1960 on the erstwhile Prabhat Studio premises, the FTII is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India.

 FTII alumni include Adoor GopalaKrishnan, Subhash Ghai, Mani Kaul, Nasiruddin Shah, Jaya Bhaduri, Raza Murad, Shatrughan Sinha, Mithun Chakraborty, Tom Alter,  Paintal, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Well-known filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Mahesh Bhatt and Girish Karnad have served as chairman on the governing council of FTII which is  a member of CILECT. an international association of film schools.