A day after calling off their 139-day strike, the Film and Television Institute of India students have dropped hints about “big plans” around the upcoming International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.
The annual festival is set to begin on 20 November.
(Also Read: FTII students end 139-day strike, to continue protest)
But the students have said protests will continue in a “peaceful and democratic manner”, hinting at escalating the matter further.
Ranjit Nair, the spokesperson for the FTII Students Association, said, “Classes begin next week. In the meantime, we are encouraging big filmmakers to come out and support us. Planning for IFFI.”
(Also Read: Filmmakers join protest against intolerance. Dibakar Banerjee, 12 other return national awards)
With this, they also wanted to express their disappointment against impediments to freedom of speech and expression.
Besides Banerjee and Patwardhan, the filmmakers who returned their awards on Wednesday were Paresh Kamdar, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshavardhan Kulkarni, Hari Nair, Rakesh Sharma, Indraneel Lahiri and Lipika Singh Darai. The three FTII alumni who gave up their honours were Vikrant Pawar, Rakesh Shukla and Prateek Vats.