Education

Education - Whistling Woods International

Whistling Woods International is India’s premier institute for Film, Communication & Creative Arts. Founded by one of India’s leading filmmaker - Subhash Ghai, Whistling Woods International (WWI) has been successfully providing world-class education in all the creative & technical aspects of Film, Communication & Creative Arts to students since 2006.



The Hollywood Reporter has rated Whistling Woods International amongst the Ten Best Film Schools in the world on multiple occasions. WWI was also awarded the ‘Top Institutes of Influence’ globally by the Forbes India. The institute was also awarded Excellence in Creative & Performing Arts at the 6th FICCI Higher Education Excellence Awards 2019.

The primary campus of WWI is the Mumbai campus, which is located inside Mumbai’s Filmcity, offers programmes that vary in duration from 1 year to 4 years catering to all the major specialisations of the Film, Communication & Creative Arts industry. WWI offers undergraduate, postgraduate & diploma programmes in Acting, Animation, Cinematography, Direction, Editing, Event Management & Experiential Marketing, Fashion Design, Game Design, Media & Communication, Music Production & Composition, Producing, Production Design, Screenwriting, Sound Recording & Design, Visual Effects and Visual Communication Design.

The curriculum at WWI is a unique hybrid of theoretical and practical, ensuring that the creative dovetails well with the business aspects. The teaching methodology at WWI is designed to ensure that the students’ learning is collaborative and industry-oriented. In addition to education, Whistling Woods International also has interests in research, development and emerging technologies & workflows in the Media & Entertainment industry.

The full-time faculty of WWI is a body of academics and renowned industry professionals like Subhash Ghai, Ravi Gupta, Rahul Puri, Anjum Rajabali, Ashwini Kaul, Abhijit Majumdar, Prashant Naik, Rabiya Nazki, Sabyasachi Bose, Salim Arif, Sudipta Basu, Rakesh Ranjan, Laili Dutta, Yusuf Mehta, Dr. Sangeeta Shankar, Jewellyn Alvares, Milindo Taid, Deepak Choudhary, Jateen Rajput and many more. Further, WWI has regular guest lectures by leading Indian & international filmmakers, actors, technicians, musicians, fashion designers, design professionals and events industry experts like Ashutosh Gowariker (Director of Oscar-nominated ‘Lagaan’), Shekhar Kapur, Danny Boyle (Academy Award winner for Slumdog Millionaire), Karan Johar, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Vishal Bhardwaj, Shabana Azmi, Nana Patekar, Gulzar, Imtiaz Ali, Kamal Hassan, Hrithik Roshan, Farah Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shelley Page (former Head of International Outreach for Dreamworks Animation), Neeta Lulla, Anita Dongre, Falguni & Shane Peacock, Gaviin Miguel, Krishna Mehta and several more. Students at Whistling Woods International, hence, have a unique opportunity to interact one-on-one with some of the most successful & talented professionals in the Indian & international Film, Communication & Creative Arts industry.

WWI has partnered with India’s most reputed universities – Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD) and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to ratify all its undergraduate, post-graduate and diploma programmes that vary in duration from 1 year to 4 years.

These unique elements in the curriculum & the teaching methodology have seen WWI’s student body grow over ten times over the past fourteen years. Further, over 15% of the student body comprises of international students, from the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Italy, France, China, Holland, Bermuda, Nigeria and from several other countries, who choose WWI over the multiple film-studies options available in their own countries.

The Institute is also highly committed to ensuring that its students move into the industry in creative and rewarding areas of employment. WWI alumni are currently working at several leading media organisations both in India & overseas - like Dharma Productions, Yashraj Films, Aamir Khan Productions, The Walt Disney Company India, Excel Entertainment, FoxStar Studios India, Mukta Arts Ltd, Phantom Pictures, Prime Focus, Technicolor, Yashraj Films, Zee TV, Double Negative, Weta Digital, Sony Imageworks, NDTV, Pocket Aces, Red Chillies Entertainment, Seventy Seven Events, Star TV, Times Now, TVF, Culture Machine, YouTube India, and several more. Since its first batch graduated in 2008, WWI has graduated over 2500 students and over 90% of them are very gainfully employed in the Indian & global Media & Entertainment industry.

Over the past decade, WWI has entered into technology partnerships with the leading tech-brands in the Media & Entertainment space, like Apple, AJA, ARRI, Autodesk, Auro 11.1, Avid, Barco, Canon, Carl Zeiss, Dolby, Entertainment Partners, Final Draft, Foxconn, Fraunhofer, FujiFilm, Google (YouTube), GoPro Cameras, HP, Kodak, NVIDIA, Red Cameras, Sennheiser, Sony, ToonBoom & more.

In a first-of-its-kind academia-industry partnership, Whistling Woods International, has partnered with Reliance Jio to set up a Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Development Lab to create India’s first generation of Cinematic VR filmmakers. Some of the most respected & successful names of the global VR ecosystem are on the advisory board of the ab.

Red Digital Cameras and Whistling Woods International have partnered to offer a RedEducation platform at the WWI Mumbai campus to ensure that the latest in Digital Cinematography equipment & training are offered to the WWI students.

In 2010, Sony, having recognised WWI as a leader in the Media & Entertainment sector in Asia, set up the Sony Media Technology Centre (SMTC) at WWI. The SMTC focuses on new and emerging technology in the fields of Digital Cinematography & HDR UHD Broadcast.

In 2010, WWI was accepted as a full member of CILECT (Centre International de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinéma et de Télévision) – a global association of film schools, which lays very high standards on admitting members (out of the thousands of film schools in the world, there are only 170 members of CILECT). Whistling Woods International hosted India’s first-ever international congress for world film schools – CILECT World Congress 2018.

WWI has student & faculty exchange programmes planned with the best film schools in the world, including activities like International student co-productions. Some of the schools that WWI has undertaken these activities with are Dodge College - Chapman University & Syracuse University in the USA, University of Calgary in Canada, Deakin University & Griffith University in Australia, Bradford College UK, Leeds University UK & NYU Tisch Asia.

WWI is a key contributor & advisor in several of the government-launched vocational education programmes – the NSDC – MESC (under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship), the TISS-SVE (under the Ministry of Human Resource Development). In 2010, WWI was invited to partner with India’s primary high school board - the CBSE, by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India to design a Media Studies curriculum. WWI has prepared the curriculum, teaching methodology & it has undertaken teacher- training for the ‘Media Studies’ elective in the 11th & 12th grade.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives are an essential part of our vision at Whistling Woods International. WWI has provided scholarships & free education to less-privileged students of over 1 million US$ over the past 14 years. On several occasions, WWI has offered full-time career education for several children from various NGOs at no charge.

With the Mumbai campus well established, WWI is strongly looking at expansion both in terms of programme verticals and campuses. WWI is at various stages of establishment of additional campuses both within India and outside, in partnership with governments & like-minded organisations.

The above is just a snapshot of what Whistling Woods International has achieved in the span of fourteen years and the institution strongly marches on its way to fulfilling its goal – to be the thought leader for Film & Media education globally.



For more information please visit www.whistlingwoods.net