If ever a destiny was fulfilled by being at the right place at the right time, it would certainly be Jagat Murari’s. His is an incredible story of how he happened to be sponsored by the British India government to study cinema at the University of South California, how he then interned in Hollywood with Orson Welles, and how on his return to independent India he was thrust with the job of creating India’s first film institute, the Film Institute of India (later adding a Television course to become FTII).

He was later tasked to create The Film Archives of India, the International Film Festival of India, the NFDC, the Film Finance Committee and even asked to travel to countries like China, London, Moscow, Germany to understand how film schools are run there and their influence in the industry. He was handed some great missions and he rose to fulfil his calling.

Murari’s daughter, Radha Chadha, who grew up on the FTII campus and witnessed first-hand all the events on campus, captures in incredible detail how her father built the iconic institute in her book, The Maker of Filmmakers. She digs into many boxes of her father’s notes, interviews hundreds of his colleagues and students and goes through archives of his documentaries and material at FTII to weave the story of how the institute came to be and its struggles to be relevant and contribute to Indian cinema.

Over the years FTII turned out top film talent like Jaya Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Shatrughan Sinha, Subhash Ghai, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Raju Hirani, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and many others. All of them had good things to say about Murari.

Two central themes

There are two central themes in the voluminous book that affected FTII’s integrity as an institution. The first one questioned the very purpose of the institute’s existence: was it to create high art films following European films, their storylines, and techniques or to create commercial films based on Indian themes? In one of the lectures at the institute, Satyajit Ray emphasised the need to meet the needs of the audience, the art, and the sponsor to be able to continue to attract funding for films. He believed that any tilt towards purely art ignoring the needs of the other two wouldn’t be a long-lasting strategy.

The second was the debate about the need for an acting course in the institute’s curriculum. One of the founding principles of the institute was to replace the high-cost star system from the industry by generating a pool of fresh acting talent with great training, who would be available to the industry at a much lower price point that the stars of that time. However, while a few did make a dent, a lot couldn’t find jobs. In addition, students of Direction and cinematography protested about the high-handedness of the Acting course students in working with them. It resulted in a lot of politics on campus and led to intense, periodic strikes, one of which cost Murari his job. As a result, ironically, the Acting course was banned for nearly 30 years.

Interesting trivia

Chadha’s book is filled with interesting trivia. Navin Nischol was the first sponsored candidate of the institute when he joined after he had already signed for a film role and the producer wanted him to learn the craft of acting before the film shoot. Meanwhile, Naseeruddin Shah came to FTII after completing an Acting course at the National School of Drama, drawn by Roshan Taneja, whom Murari had roped in to bring the method acting discipline to the acting classes.

While interning with Orson Welles, who was making Macbeth at that time, Murari learned how to make a film on a shoestring budget. That helped him work on his documentaries with meagre budgets and he inculcated in his students the science of budgetary planning and control. That experience also came in handy when he joined the board of the Film Finance Committee to help fund films.

How Murari navigated differences with Girish Karnad, who came to head the institute with three National Awards under his belt, and with Ritvik Ghatak, the maverick Bengali director whose alcoholism was a bane, are case studies on managing creative talent.

One expects a daughter’s book on her father to be an eulogy of sorts, an attempt to airbrush some of the history, but Chadha’s book stays matter of fact, avoiding any hyperbole. She paints a vivid picture of Murari’s determination to build a great institute.

Just for that the book is worth a read.

The book is peppered with many rare photographs from the archives of the institute over the years. Through the book, one narrative stays consistent, of Murari’s struggles against bureaucratic red tape that frequently attempted to strangle the creative freedom of the film school.

The truth is films can’t report to the government, they report to the box office.

(Naveen Chandra runs 91 Film Studios that produces feature films in Indian regional languages.)

About the Book

Title: The Maker of Filmmakers – How Jagat Murari and FTII changed Indian Cinema forever

Author: Radha Chadha

Publisher: Penguin Viking

Pages: 536

Price: ₹1,299 (Hardcover)

Published on January 16, 2026