There were about 10 years separating the five children in my family and we all went to the same primary school in Hackney, north-east London, called Tyssen school. From 11 to 16, I went to Homerton House comprehensive in Hackney, as my friends were going there. It was a rough school, in a poorish working-class area, all boys, 2,000 in one building. There were lots of fights and many teachers couldn’t handle it.

My form tutor, a French chap called Roland Dorza, kept everyone in order. He was always very smart in a suit, nicely pressed blue shirt and a tie, a real upstanding kind of guy, and he earned a lot of respect from the 25 kids in his form. He wouldn’t let us get away with being scruffy and he could be tough if he thought we weren’t pushing ourselves.

On the first day when he read out the roll, quite a few of the names were strange and everyone was laughing. But after a few weeks everyone knew the religion, cultural background and upbringing of their classmates. Muslim kids would fast and wouldn’t be teased. In the class of 25 students, we had nine kids from Asia, nine from the West Indies, kids from Germany, Ireland and Africa, and two white English kids. As we grew up we thought this was the norm. We didn’t realise it was a very small part of town.

Mr Dorza taught me French as well. I wanted to do drama but he advised me to do languages to learn about the world, and I realise the importance of that now. He was a brilliant chess player, and in this rough school where sport was everything, he set up a lunchtime chess club. Even though I loved football, I joined because in winter it was freezing outside and nobody was allowed inside unless they were in the chess club. He was cool at setting up things like that, and he organised student-teacher tournaments, which were important.

I grew up where everyone was made to understand and respect everyone else, and it was only when I left that I realised I was in a minority - I hadn’t realised that before because everyone I knew was brown. I went to college, and, out of the 50 kids, six were non-white, and all happened to be sitting at the same table. We didn’t do it consciously.

At Homerton House there were lots of kids with reading disabilities and I found the concept of exams unfair. Some kids were intelligent, but bad at remembering things. I was in the guinea pig year of the new GCSE exams. The new system made perfect sense to me because there was a lot of continual assessment. From 16, I refused to sit an exam again. I’ve a masters degree, which I never studied for. I wanted to be judged on the work that I’d done over a period of time and I’ve ended up working in film, where you are judged on your show reel.

I studied film-making in Wales, which meant Icould leave home and grow up. My big influence at university was Tony Grisoni, who gave me the confidence to write. He was a working screenwriter who taught part-time. His way of teaching was to share ideas and be open to other people’s ideas. He encouraged me to draw on my Indian traditions, and to read things I wouldn’t normally have read, such as Italo Calvino’s folk tales. They inspired my graduation film, Indian Tales, which has magic realism running through it. The film won an award in Chicago, and as a result I started working for Carlton Television. Tony is still a good friend and we hope to make a film together soon.

Film-maker Asif Kapadia was talking to Helen Barlow

The story so far

1972 Born in London

1983 Homerton House comprehensive, Hackney

1991-92 Newport film school, Wales

1992-94 BA at Polytechnic of Central London, honours in film, television and photographic arts

1995 onwards Directs for Carlton Television, gains MA from Royal Academy; graduation film The Sheep Thief wins prize at Cannes in short film competition

2000-2001 Directs first feature film, The Warrior; wins photographic award at San Sebastian festival, and main prize at Festival of British Cinema in France; wins Sutherland Trophy for best debut feature at London Film Festival

2002 UK release of The Warrior