How do we remember our years as women students at one of the country’s premier film institutes? What do the films we dreamed of, the images we created, and the ideas that shaped us say about women’s place in cinema today?
The Film Institute of India was established in Pune in 1960 by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. As the first film school in newly independent India, it recognized cinema as an essential part of the nation's cultural landscape. The Institute was envisioned as a key public institution to train professionals for the growing film industry across the country. With the expansion of technology and the medium’s scope, it was renamed the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in 1971. Over the past six decades, FTII has produced more than 6,000 graduates—of whom just over 600 are women.
A Room of Our Own is a memory project led by Bina Paul, Reena Mohan, and Surabhi Sharma, featuring the voices and experiences of women graduates from FTII, Pune. While memory is often subjective and can veer into nostalgia, this web-based project uses personal stories of women students to question conventional histories of cinema. Through oral histories, photographs from private collections, and 13 short videos reflecting our time as students, we foreground a shared, gendered experience—one that highlights and celebrates the contributions of women in cinema, particularly those from FTII. On this website, visitors are invited to engage with a curated journey of edited clips from online conversations (conducted between 2020 and 2023), archival photographs, and newly created short films. Each visitor creates a unique, non-linear path through the content, shaped by chance and choice. The focus is on foregrounding a collective experience rather than highlighting individual experiences alone.
This is a work in progress. We aim to continue adding 20 to 25 women’s stories at regular intervals.