Dedicated readers will be aware that this blog has published some trenchant criticism of the current state of AFTRS. The gravamen was that over recent years the place has been downgraded into little more than a TAFE. A myriad of short courses has produced graduates and diploma holders who on face value have nothing to offer the film industry. The days when the school regularly produced major film-makers are long gone. Similarly long gone is the emphasis on producing indigenous graduates. New director Brit Neil Peplow, who turned up last September or so, some months after previous director Sanra Levy left the building, has a major task. There's no sign of anything happening yet. In the meantime, nature abhorring a vacuum, a nearby national institution in Sydney, is out in the market place trawling for business. Here's the advertisement the National Institute of Dramatic Art, best known for producing a long line of great actors, including Oscar winners, has placed in the SFF catalogue. So NIDA now proposes that it teaches film directing, 'film-making', design and writing, presumably for the screen or screens
Needless to say your taxes have also gone to work with an ad placed by AFTRS (twice the size of the NIDA insertion). FYI. Sorry that the full width didn't get in but the SFF catalogue has one of those weird sizes that dont automatically fit to pages.
Are AFTRS or NIDA within the official tertiary structures or are they independently organised, fundecd, evaluated?
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