Being a documentary filmmaker sounds like a dream — travelling the world, meeting people from all walks of life, and capturing raw moments on film.
Along the way, you may just make a small difference with your visual masterpiece, like “An Inconvenient Truth” and the more recent “American Factory” did.
It’s a privilege only a few can achieve, which is precisely why I wanted to go behind the scenes with Adi Prakash, who’s not only a PhD candidate but a documentary filmmaker.
He broke it down for me.
“Time limitations are one of them as there’s a certain timeframe to film a documentary,” Prakash shares. “And another is content limitations. If you’re working for a news outlet, you can’t talk about certain things.”
That surprised me.
We often imagine documentary filmmakers as free spirits trying to capture every part of life. But the truth is, copyright laws, privacy rights, and journalistic integrity — and lots more of these — dictate what makes it to the screen.
Prakash learned this the hard way, especially while filming in India.
Prakash has reported, filmed and produced non-fiction video content for news outlets and non-profits. Source: Adi Prakash
An unexpected path to becoming a documentary filmmaker
Prakash didn’t start with a film camera in his hand. In fact, his journey began in a completely different world: economics.
“I loved economics,” he says. “But I also loved wandering the streets with friends, just watching life unfold. That’s when I started thinking deeply about society.”
Prakash pursued a bachelor’s degree in economics at St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai. That’s when he got really interested in street life.
“I’d spend the afternoon going out with friends to have a beer and wander the streets, and that’s when I started thinking about society,” Prakash shares.
He became fascinated with how people in the West perceived India, and how those perceptions often missed the mark.
“There were so many assumptions,” he says. “I wanted to understand why.”
That curiosity led him deeper into economic theory, though he admits he could have easily chosen sociology, political science, or even anthropology. But it was when a visiting journalist told him that economics is key to understanding society that something lit in him.
So when it came time for graduate school, Prakash found himself at a crossroads. “I was getting interested in social justice movements,” he says. “I wanted to travel and document them. But my father insisted that I get a strong theoretical background first.”
His father’s reasoning made sense: journalism is a skill, but understanding society requires depth.
So Prakash listened. He completed a master’s degree in Development Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 2014.
Yet, the dream of pursuing a master’s degree in journalism never left him.
In 2015, Prakash took the leap and moved to the US to do just that at Northwestern University.
“It was a great school, and I got a scholarship,” he says. “That’s where I worked on my first real documentary, about gang violence in Chicago.”
Prakash pursued a Master of Science in Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Source: Adi Prakash
The project was intense.
“It was dangerous,” he says. “We were filming in neighbourhoods where violence was a daily reality. But I wanted to understand the fringes of society, why things happen the way they do.”
His dedication paid off. The film was nominated for an award, proving he had a future as a documentary filmmaker.
After earning his degree, Prakash returned to India and began working on news documentaries. But he quickly discovered that speed often trumped depth.
“News documentaries are rushed,” he explains. “You have to deliver fast, which means you can’t always do justice to the story.”
Looking for more creative freedom, he shifted gears and started producing PR documentary films, often for organisations.
One of his biggest clients was the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
It was a life-changing opportunity.
“They wanted to make films about Indigenous cultures in the Himalayan mountains,” he shares. “I spent the next three or four years making nine short documentaries.”
Working in the Himalayas gave Prakash a new perspective. He found himself immersed in the world of the Lepcha people, an Indigenous group with deep traditions and culture.
“I was making a film about their handicrafts and their songs,” he says. “But I realised something, the real story wasn’t just about their art. It was about the political and social conditions shaping their lives.”
That’s when the limitations of filmmaking hit him hardest.
“You couldn’t really explore the deeper issues,” he explains. “Not because the UNDP wanted to hide them, it was just that the focus of the documentary didn’t allow for it.”
The experience left him frustrated.
“I started theorising about their lives,” he says. “I began asking myself: how do I tell their stories without restrictions?”
Prakash was a Supervising Producer for CNN-News18 and a Documentary Producer at The Quint. Source: Adi Prakash
What happens when a documentary filmmaker can’t tell their story
The answer came in an unexpected form: academia.
In 2022, Prakash began pursuing a PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Now in his third year, he’s researching how storytelling, culture, and representation intersect — essentially blending his background in economics, filmmaking, and anthropology into one powerful lens.
“Filmmaking taught me how to see,” he says. “Anthropology teaches me how to understand.”
