Mani Kaul expired in 2011. He was from FTTI, Pune. Ritwik Ghatak in the 1960s was the vice-principal, FTII. Mani and Adoor were  students then. Later Mani taught cinema at FTII. His initial film Uski Roti (1969) was a radical film, non-conventional. Along with Bhuwan Shome (Mrinal Sen) and Sara Akash ( Basu Chatterjee), it could be considered as a product of New Cinema in India. Mani, however, remained esoteric, his cinema being too difficult to comprehend.