Make the Filmmaker: And Keep Making Films

Why don't I quit making films?

Nikhil Kamkolkar has asked himself that question after repeated rejection, collaborations that fell apart, burnout, financial loss, and years spent writing scripts that went unproduced and making films that went largely unseen.

After his debut feature failed at the box office, he was ashamed to call himself a filmmaker. He went back to corporate life and the fat paycheck. But his purpose, to build worlds and tell original stories, pulled him back into filmmaking.

This time, he took a different path. He started by asking a different question: What kind of person do I have to become to keep making films through the inevitable challenges, and still honor the needs of my personal life?

In Make the Filmmaker, Kamkolkar writes about the part of a creative life that craft books often leave out. He writes about his purpose and his efforts to become more present, choose collaborators, build community, set boundaries, persist, recover, and find the grace to learn from failure without being defined by it.

He shares his experiences making and releasing the thematically related feature films, “Love Love,” and “Love Love: Fractures.” His insights come from projects that failed, detours he took, and relationships that built and broke him.

Organized in three acts, Becoming, Collaborating, and Evolving, the book explores the connection between making the work and developing the person who has to make it. Kamkolkar lands on the belief that both are equally important.

This is not a manual for breaking into the film industry, and it offers no promise of success. It is a short, honest account of what has helped Kamkolkar return to his purpose after failure and keep putting his films and stories into the world.

Nikhil Kamkolkar is an Indian-American writer, director, and editor based in New Jersey. His debut feature, Indian Cowboy: A Love-Love Story, was later re-edited and released as Love Love. His second feature, Love Love: Fractures, is a nine-part thematic anthology assembled from films he created across different stages of his filmmaking life.Kamkolkar studied computer science and film at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed UCLA's Professional Program in Writing for Television. His creative work spans independent filmmaking, screenwriting, editing, cinematography, and virtual production.Outside filmmaking, he has worked as a software engineer at Microsoft and led product and technology teams at companies including MTV and Nickelodeon. The movement between corporate life and independent filmmaking helped shape Make the Filmmaker: And Keep Making Films, his personal account of developing the person who has to make the work.He shares his films, books, and ongoing projects at KAM9.TV.