The Brain Behind QURA
Lata Murugan
Founder of QURA Film Academy. Former Head of Direction at L.V. Prasad Film & TV Academy. Granddaughter of the founder of AVM Studios. Twenty years of teaching filmmaking across three continents. now building the school she always wished existed.
Lata Murugan
Founder, QURA Film Academy
Cinema Was the First Language
Born into the studios that built Indian cinema. Returning to teach the next generation how to build it again.
Lata Murugan grew up inside one of the foundational stories of Indian filmmaking. Her grandfather founded AVM Studios, the production house that has, since 1945, helped define what Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, and Kannada cinema look like — producing more than 175 films across eight decades and serving as the launchpad for actors and craftspeople who shaped the modern industry.
She did not, however, inherit a film career. She built a teaching career — spending two decades inside film schools across India, the United States, and Southern Africa, and rising to become Head of Direction at the L.V. Prasad Film & TV Academy, one of the most respected film schools in South India.
What she saw across all three continents was the same uncomfortable truth: students were being trained to do one job on a film set. The industry needed people who understood all of them. QURA Film Academy is her answer.
“I believe every filmmaker carries a unique lens through which they see the world. At QURA, we don’t teach you to copy — we teach you to discover your own cinematic voice and craft stories that only you can tell.”
Why QURA, Why Now
The decade India never built its film school for.
The industry shifted.
OTT platforms commission more than 30,000 hours of original content every year in India. The work has moved from a handful of studios to hundreds of writer-directors. The training has not.
The schools didn't.
Most film schools in India still organise themselves around 1990s production hierarchies — one student per craft. Streaming-era productions are smaller, leaner, and reward people who can write, shoot, and cut their own work.
The talent is here.
India produces some of the most ambitious storytellers in the world — in nine languages, across twenty-eight states. What it lacks is a structured, affordable program that turns that ambition into industry-grade craft.
Lata's belief is straightforward: every QURA student should leave the program able to write, direct, shoot, edit, and finish a short film, alongside a chosen depth specialisation. That means hands-on work from week one, professional equipment from day one, and faculty who are still actively making films — not narrating slides about films they made twenty years ago.
The school sits between two partners that already command serious respect in their domains. Qube Cinema for technology, distribution, and industry access. Rajalakshmi Engineering College (NAAC A++) for academic infrastructure across two campuses, including the Qube Cinema-equipped preview theatre at Thandalam. LevelUp Learning for marketing, advisory, and the alumni network of 18,000+ filmmakers who already learn through them. And at the center of it sits a faculty Lata recruited personally — Emmy-nominated cinematographers, Netflix editors, Fulbright scholars — people whose names already appear in the credits of films you have probably watched.
20+
YEARS
Teaching filmmaking across India, the United States, and Southern Africa.
L.V. Prasad
FORMERLY
Head of Direction at the L.V. Prasad Film & TV Academy, one of South India's most respected film schools.
AVM Studios
HERITAGE
Granddaughter of the founder of AVM Studios — Indian cinema's longest-running production house, est. 1945.
The school Lata always wanted to learn at.
Applications for the Class of 2026 are open. Become a complete filmmaker.