From Engineering Student to Filmmaker in Prague: My Story

I never planned to become a filmmaker. And I definitely never planned to end up in Prague.

But here I am — living in one of the most cinematic cities in the world, studying at Prague Film Institute, making films, and building a life I genuinely love. If you told the 18-year-old version of me that this is where I'd end up, I'm not sure he would have believed you.

The Engineering Years in Chennai

I spent four years studying Electronics and Communication Engineering in Chennai. On paper, it was a solid path — technical, stable, respectable. But honestly? I didn't really know what I wanted from life at that point. I was just... going through it.

What I did know was that I loved making little videos. Short, comedic clips with my friends. Silly stuff, really — but something about it felt alive in a way that circuit diagrams never did. I remember having roommates in a different department who were into photography and film, and I'd spend time with them completely fascinated. I didn't even know what "film direction" was called as a proper field of study back then. I just knew I was drawn to it.

But I kept going with engineering. I told myself I'd work in corporate, figure it out later. That's what you do, right?

COVID Changed Everything

My final year of engineering was during COVID. The whole world stopped, and suddenly I had something I never had before: time. Real, unstructured time to sit with my thoughts.

I was back home helping my father with his business. Between tasks, I started reading. A lot. And somewhere in those books, it became crystal clear to me — I want to make films. Not as a hobby. Not "someday." I want to actually learn it, pursue it, commit to it.

I decided I wanted to explore filmmaking properly before taking any job. I wanted to study it. The question was — where?

Why Prague? (And Why Not America)

My first instinct was America. That's where you go to make it in film, right? Hollywood. Los Angeles. I applied for a US visa. I didn't get it.

At the time, it felt like a setback. Looking back, it was one of the best things that could have happened to me.

I started looking at Europe instead. And that's when I discovered something I hadn't really thought about before — cinema didn't start in America. It started in Europe. The Lumière Brothers. Italian neorealism. French New Wave. The whole foundation of the art form I wanted to dedicate my life to was European. Suddenly, I felt like I had been thinking about it all wrong.

Then I found Prague. I had never heard much about Czech Republic before. But when I started reading about it, looking at photos of the city — I just fell in love with it. The architecture, the atmosphere, the film culture. Prague Film Institute came up in my research and something clicked. I applied. I got in. And I packed my bags.

The First Months in Prague

Honestly? The first months were beautiful. Crazy, but beautiful.

There was a language barrier, but not as much as I expected — most people in Prague speak English, especially in the areas I was moving around in. Loneliness wasn't really a big issue for me personally. What was intense was being thrown into a completely new world — a new industry, a new creative environment, a new way of thinking about storytelling. That was a lot to absorb all at once.

Film school itself was eye-opening. I was on set with people from all over the world, learning by doing — not just theory. The kind of hands-on, real-world filmmaking experience I had been craving for years was finally right in front of me. It was overwhelming in the best possible way.

Looking Back

When I think about that version of me in Chennai during COVID — reading books, helping with the family business, quietly figuring out that he wanted something completely different from what he'd been working toward — I feel grateful for him. He made a brave call.

Would I ever have taken a corporate job instead? No. Not a chance. That life was never mine.

Prague gave me a film education, an international perspective, and — unexpectedly — a home. I came here not knowing much about this country, and now it's the city where I'm building my career, my creative identity, and my life.

If you're someone sitting at a crossroads right now — maybe in a degree you're not sure about, maybe with a dream that feels too risky to pursue — I just want to say: sometimes the visa rejection, the unexpected detour, the country you'd never heard of — that's actually the right path. You just can't see it yet.

This is just the beginning of my story. Welcome to Verma Vision.