Surge Films ran a program alongside Sheffield Futures. Sheffield Futures is a local independent charity that supports young people aged 11 to 25 to feel well, have a voice, and move into education, training, or work. When Jagraj walked into Futures Film School in 2024, he'd never held a professional camera, and by his own admission was "a very quiet, introverted person."

Two years on, he's a working cinematographer with a NFTS Film Academy credit, a BAFTA bursary, and three years of Sheffield DocFest experience, the last year of that being spent on the festival's youth jury rather than behind a camera.

Starting With Nothing But a Desire

Jagraj had always been drawn to storytelling, but like a lot of aspiring filmmakers, he hit the same wall early on. Everyone kept telling him to "just make films," without ever explaining how. He wasn't interested in the traditional university route. What he needed was a practical, hands-on way in.

That's what Surge Film’s Futures Film School gave him.

"That was like the first practical step for me into filmmaking," he says, "on how you actually make a film, or what does making a film look like in practice."

He didn't arrive with a script, or even an idea. He arrived with the desire to make something and let the story find him inside the room. That story became Crossed Wires, the short film he shot as cinematographer during the programme, and the project that would end up opening every door that followed.

Finding Confidence in an Unfamiliar Country

What makes Jagraj's story stand out isn't just the career milestones, it's the personal transformation underneath. Newly arrived in the UK, naturally introverted, and with zero technical film experience, he describes his first months in the country as a period of total uncertainty. Getting on set for Futures Film School, he says, meant deliberately stepping outside his comfort zone. 

"I'd rather have the discomfort of coming out of my comfort zone rather than not knowing what it feels like."

That discomfort didn't last long. He points to the environment created on the programme whilst describing it as supportive, non-judgemental, and collaborative and credits it as the reason he settled in so quickly. Everyone on the course was learning together, which took the pressure off and let him focus on absorbing everything he could, rather than just getting through the day.

By the time Crossed Wires premiered at the Showroom Cinema, something had shifted. Jagraj was 18, and only six months into living in the UK, and about to step on stage for the first time in his life. He remembers the first few minutes as nerve-wracking but watching the film he'd helped create play on a big screen, in front of a room full of people, is a moment he still returns to. Asked to sum up how it felt, he doesn't hesitate: it boosted his confidence more than anything had before.

From Volunteer to Youth Jury at Sheffield DocFest 

If Futures Film School was the starting point, Sheffield DocFest became the through line of everything that followed. Jagraj first volunteered on DocFest's film crew straight after finishing the programme in 2024.
He came back the following year in the same role, before returning a third time in a very different capacity: as a member of the festival's youth jury.

That shift gave him a completely different view of the industry, it showed him not just what happens on set, but how festivals actually work behind the scenes. Through the youth jury, he got direct access to people at the top of the documentary world, from a former BAFTA chair to commissioners at Channel 4 and international sales agents, and the chance to ask them anything about how films get selected, funded and distributed.

It's also where the seeds of his interest in film programming were planted, something he'd already begun exploring through a BFI residential course earlier in 2024, where he helped programme a festival strand of his own.

NFTS, BAFTA, and Building a Career in the Camera Department

The connections Jagraj built through Futures Film School and DocFest kept compounding. In 2025, he was one of just 54 young people selected nationally for the NFTS Film Academy program in partnership with Disney, a fully funded, two-week residential programme at the National Film and Television School, one of the UK's most prestigious film schools. He worked as cinematographer on one of the short films produced there, describing an experience where mentors "tell you what to do, but it's all you". Full responsibility, industry-level equipment, and a cohort of similarly driven young filmmakers from across the country.

Around the same time, he was awarded a BAFTA bursary, which he used practically to buy his own camera and take a real step toward freelancing in the camera department, the corner of the industry where he'd always felt most at home.

"I Trust Myself a Lot More Now"

Ask Jagraj to compare himself now to the person who first walked through the door in 2024, and he doesn't reach for anything dramatic.

"I trust myself a lot more," he says. "On day one I was second guessing everything,  nervous, clueless, just trying to keep up. Now I know what I'm doing on set. I back my instincts."

He's careful to point out that being introverted was never something he needed to fix. If anything, he sees it as an asset: a more observational, quieter way of noticing detail that others might rush past, better suited to storytelling than to being the loudest person in the room.

His advice to anyone considering joining a programme like the one he did is simple, and delivered without a trace of hesitation: don't overthink it, don't pretend to be something you're not, and just apply. The support, he says, will be there before you even know you need it.

Still Just Getting Started

Jagraj is currently working full-time in the camera department and continuing to build his freelance career across South Yorkshire and the wider filmmaking community in the United Kingdom. From a first-time volunteer who didn't know anyone in the country, to a cinematographer with national film school and BAFTA-backed credentials, his path traces back to a single decision: showing up to a programme with nothing but the desire to make something.

As he puts it himself, looking back at everything that followed: "It's all a chain. One thing just led to another."