Whistling Woods International (WWI), Mumbai

WWI has been rated as one of the Ten best film schools in the world, in the July 2014, August 2013 and July 2010 issues of ‘The Hollywood Reporter’.

WWI has partnered with The Tata Institute of Social Sciences - one of India’s most reputed universities - to ratify all its 3-year undergraduate & 1-year Postgraduate courses with BSc, BA, BBA & PGD degrees.

Oscar-award winning alumni – 3 WWI alumni were part of the Oscar Award winning Cinematography & VFX teams for the ‘Life of Pi’. WWI alumni have been involved in some of the most successful Indian films over the past 5 years. WWI has graduated 1100+ media professionals since 2008.

WWI alumni are revitalising regional film industries. Several regional (Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Malayalam & Kannada) industries have been greatly benefited by WWI alumni choosing to go back to their native markets and making films in those languages. This has provided a much-needed quality filmmaking skills boost for regional cinema.

WWI is exporting education. WWI has setup a campus in the UK, in partnership with Bradford College, called the Bradford – Whistling Woods Film School. WWI is also setting up a campus in Nigeria, in partnership with TrendCorp Africa, called ‘The African Film & TV Academy’.

WWI has entered into a partnership with Google under which WWI hosts Asia’s second & India's first ‘YouTube Space’. Further, WWI runs Asia’s only ‘YouTube Educator Lab’ for teaching courses in content creation for digital platforms.

WWI has graduated approx. 1100+ students till date with over 90% gainfully employed at several leading Film & Media organisations in India & overseas.

Over 15% of the WWI’s film students are / have been international students – from USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Italy, France, China, UAE, Holland, Bermuda, Nigeria and several other countries who choose to study at WWI over the other film-studies options available in their own countries.CSR – Whistling Woods has provided scholarships & free education to less-privileged students of over 5cr over the past 9 years. WWI has provided both full-time career education and undertaken workshops for children of several NGOs at no charge.

WWI has consistently provided NGOs & associations engaging in Public Service Advertisements complimentary filmmaking services through its faculty & students.

WWI is a key contributor & advisor in all the government-launched vocational education programmes – the NSDC (under the PMO), the TISS-SVE (under the MHRD).

WWI management is regularly called upon to consult with both the Central government and several State governments on what strategy they should adopt for Film, Media & Entertainment education.

WWI has, on request from the Ministry of HumaThe Sony Media Technology Center – set up jointly by Sony & WWI, is located at the WWI campus in Filmcity, Mumbai. Sony, the world’s largest M&E corporation, has recognised WWI as a leader in the Media & Entertainment sector globally and chose to partner with WWI for focusing on new and emerging technology in the fields of Digital Cinematography and 3D Stereoscopic Filmmaking. There are only 3 such centers in the world, the other 2 being in London & LA. The Mumbai SMTC is the only center that is in partnership, while the other two are stand-alone centers.

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 (of the 3000+ film schools in the world, CILECT has accepted only 160 schools as members).

In late 2013, President of WWI - Meghna Ghai-Puri was awarded an honorary fellowship from Bradford College, the UK for her contribution to global Film & Media education through Whistling Woods International.

In early 2014, Subhash Ghai was honoured as the ‘Education Evangelist of India’ by Skilltree Foundation for setting up Whistling Woods International.

In early 2014, Subhash Ghai was awarded the Karamveer Chakra by the International Confederation of NGOs (ICONGO), a United Nations body for setting up Whistling Woods International. In June 2014.

WWI was recognised as a ‘Great Place to Study’ by Skilltree Knowledge Consortium and was awarded by the UK House of Commons.

Guest Lectures - Over 300 Indian & global film professionals have guest-lectured at WWI like Ashutosh Gowarikar (Director of Oscar-nominated ‘Lagaan’), Karan Johar, Rakeysh Mehra, Anurag Kashyap, Farhan Akhtar, Shyam Benegal, Shabana Azmi, Jaya Bachchan, Naseeruddin Shah, Danny Boyle (Academy Award winner for Slumdog Millionaire), Rajkumar Hirani, Vishal Bhardwaj, Imtiaz Ali, Shelley Page (Head International Outreach, Dreamworks), Lord David Puttnam (Oscar Award winning Producer of ‘Chariots of Fire’), Senator Dodd (Chairman of the MPAA, USA), Tom Schulman (writer of ‘Dead Poet’s Society’) and several more.

Leading Taiwanese firm ‘Foxconn’ has sponsored a state-of-the-art media lab at Whistling Woods.

WWI has launched a weekly cultural Masterclass to imbibe music, art & dance in the young generations under the banner of ‘5th Veda’. Legendary artistes such as Shankar Mahadevan, Dr. L. Subramniam, Kavita Krishnamurthi, Hariharan, Taufiq Qureshi & Louiz Banks have conducted workshops so far.

WWI aspires to achieve high international standards of education and is a member of CILECT, a federation of the World’s top Film and Media schools. WWI is acknowledged by industry peers and industry Trade bodies as a leading education brand in Media and Entertainment. WWI works closely with the Ministry of HRD, Govt of India to initiate media education in CBSE schools while developing curriculum, setting standards, teaching teachers and standardizing evaluation processes for the same.