Day three of the Film Bazaar’s NFDC Knowledge Series had an interesting line up. The day started with a session on Skill Development in Film Industry: Standardized Training Techniques with guest speaker Amala Akkineni, Actor, Director, Annapurna International School for Film and Media along with the MD of NFDC, Nina Lath Gupta.

In an interactive session with Nina Lath Gupta, Amala spoke about her initiative with Kamal Haasan, towards establishing norms for vocational training for the film sector and the importance of skill development.  

She believes that emerging technologies has not only increased the scope of content creation across multiple formats and platforms but have also scaled up the requirement for trained and skilled workers & technicians. It is important that not only the heads of departments but also their entire teams and rest of crew are in sync with the best of technology and their effective application as well as best practices in the media and entertainment sector.

Talking about the Skill Development program, Amala says, “India is 200 years behind in everything and in films; we are still in the beginner stage. If you see in Hollywood, they are far ahead of us and give opportunities to skilled people. The Indian Film Industry is in immense need of skilled people and we must encourage them.”

It’s part of the government’s Skill India program to help envision and facilitate standardized training programs and procedures across the Indian Film Industry. Her session explored the modalities for effective implementation of the same.