THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Four months after the exit of Shankar Mohan as director following intense protest from the students, film actor Jijoy P R has been appointed as the director of the K R Narayanan National Institute of Visual Science and Arts. An associate professor in the Department of Acting at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune, Jijoy has acted in 55 films and 45 plays.
The appointment of the new director comes after the appointment of famous filmmaker Saeed Mirza as the chairman of the Institute. Following the resignation of Shankar Mohan in January, filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan also resigned as the institute’s chairman. Higher Education Minister R Bindu, in a release issued here, said the government aims to elevate K R Narayanan Institute to the top among the film schools in the country.
Jijoy graduated from the School of Drama and Fine Arts at Calicut University and holds a Master’s degree and MPhil in Drama and Theatre Arts with a rank from Pondicherry University. He has acted in 25 short films and ten TV serials. He has participated in around 400 international theatre festivals held on four continents. Jijoy, who is an alumnus of Christ College, Iringalakuda, served as a faculty at FTII since 2014. The institute has been in the eye of a storm following students alleging caste bias by the former director Shankar Mohan.