Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) will start its own film and television institute in the next academic year.

Kerala Information Minister M M Hassan says the self-financing institute, offering courses in scriptwriting, cinematography, editing, sound recording and various other fields relating to film production, will be affiliated to the Kerala University. “The discussions in this regard are progressing.”

KSFDC chairman P V Gangadharan says as part of KSFDC’s diversification programme, it will set up an integrated studio complex and a film-based entertainment park at Chitranjali Studio near here. “The proposed project will be implemented with private participation under the build-own-operate term on the 37 acres of land owned by Chitranjali.”

Hassan says the Kerala cabinet has already given its nod to the project prepared by ICICI-Kinfra after a detailed study. “In the first phase of the project, a fully-equipped state-of-the-art studio and a model of a typical Kerala village for cinema shooting will be set up. In the second phase, an entertainment park, meant for tourism-related activities and film production, will be developed.”

KSFDC has chalked out a scheme to attract film producers from outside the state. A nodal officer for the project has already been appointed. Gangadharan says the corporation has decided not to invest in film production in future since its first venture, Krishna Gopalakrishna by noted actor-director Balachandra Menon, turned out to be a box-office disaster.

KSFDC, however, has launched a new scheme in which producers could use the facilities at Chitranjali Studio.