NEW DELHI: Shankar Mohan has been promoted as Joint Director in the Directorate of Film Festivals, becoming the first officer in more than a decade to function in this post.
Mohan has been with the Directorate for almost 20 years. He had joined the DFF as Deputy Director.
Prior to that, Mohan was a documentary filmmaker and has several films to his credit. He had done a four-year course in the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, in Direction and Screenplay writing and then made films for almost a decade before joining the DFF.
Mohan had been promoted to the post of Senior Deputy Director in the DFF in 2003. Now 53, Mohan has for the past few years been in charge of the foreign films section of the annual International Film Festival of India.
His present promotion has come just over a month before the 40th IFFI commences at Goa on 23 November.
It is learnt that Malati Sahay had been the last Joint Director but had functioned as head of the DFF for several years before her retirement in the late eighties. Another officer had been given this promotion on the eve of his retirement but had not functioned in that post, Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com.