Category: Biography
Publisher: Penguin Random House India
Rights: Translation rights available (excluding Hindi); Dramatisation rights available
When Jagat Murari, a young film student in post-war America, found himself at the feet of one of cinema’s true giants—Orson Welles—during the making of Macbeth in 1947, the lessons he absorbed on that set shaped not only his future but the future of Indian cinema. Returning to a newly independent India, Jagat went on to build the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) from the ground up.
In The Maker of Filmmakers, Radha Chadha offers an intimate and meticulously researched portrait of her father—a celebrated documentary filmmaker—and the iconic film school he built. With uncanny consistency, FTII turned out top talent—Jaya Bachchan and Shabana Azmi, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Subhash Ghai, Shatrughan Sinha and Mani Kaul, and other cinema legends. His alumni became the leading names of Bollywood and beyond. They spearheaded the Indian New Wave, kick-started regional language cinema and helped usher television into the country.
How did Jagat go about ‘making’ such extraordinary filmmakers? What was his secret formula? With unprecedented access to Jagat’s personal papers and over a hundred interviews with alumni and colleagues, Radha leads us behind the scenes—into the mind of a visionary who reshaped Indian cinema, even as he grappled with its many challenges.
A gripping story of ambition, adversity and artistic brilliance—richly illustrated with rare photographs—The Maker of Filmmakers paints a vivid picture of how one man’s vision and determination helped turn Indian cinema into the global powerhouse it is today.
The author: Radha Chadha