SPARSH AHUJA
Sparsh Ahuja is an award-winning filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer working primarily in animation and documentary. His work explores themes of migration and belonging, and has featured in The New Yorker, TIME, The BBC, Al Jazeera and The Economist.
Sparsh’s latest documentary short, Birdsong, premiered at SXSW 2023, was shortlisted for the Grierson, IDA and BIFA Awards, and was acquired by The Guardian as a Vimeo Staff Pick. His VR Film, Child of Empire, played at the Sundance Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, and MIFF, and won the inaugural XR History Award from the Korber-Stiftung Foundation in Hamburg.
In 2023, Sparsh was one of the 12 factual producers selected for VicScreen’s inaugural “Originate Factual” incubator. In 2024, he will spend 4 months being mentored by Golden Globe Award winning studio Les Films D’Ici in Montpellier, with the support of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust for Emerging Australian Artists.
Sparsh’s work has toured institutions such as The Victoria and Albert Museum, BFI Southbank, and ForumDesImages in Paris, and has been supported by the British Council, Australia Council for the Arts, Doc Society, Ford Foundation and the CatchLight Fellowship amongst others. He spends his time between Naarm (Melbourne) and Delhi.
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sparshahuja9@gmail.com
BIRDSONG
Exploring the whistling traditions of the Hmong people of northern Laos, whose language straddles the boundary between music and speech, Birdsong witnesses a collision of ancient tradition with modern urban life.
Produced in collaboration with Lao New Wave Cinema, The Guardian, Audible and Aesthetica Magazine.
Watch on The Guardian Documentary Short
(Co-Creator)
Shortlisted for Grierson, IDA and BIFA Awards
SXSW 2023 (World Premiere)
Sundance London 2023
Palm Springs IFF (Special Mention)
San Francisco IFF
Dharamsala IFF
Flatpack Festival “Optical Sound” Award
CHILD OF EMPIRE
Child of Empire is an animated VR documentary for Oculus Quest, in which you experience the largest forced migration in human history, the Partition of India and Pakistan.
Embody the childhood memories of two survivors, as they reflect on their journeys across a divided homeland.
Produced in collaboration with The CatchLight Foundation, CreativeXR, and BFI/Doc Society.
Read more VR Documentary
(Co-Creator)
Winner,
XR History Award
Nominee, Webby Award 2021,
“Best VR Headset Experience”
Sundance 2022 (World Premiere)
Sheffield DocFest
Melbourne IFF
Atlanta Film Festival
Venice Gap Financing Market 2020
LOST MIGRATIONS
Episode 1: REST IN PAPER
Based on the true story of Ghulam Ali, Rest in Paper is the absurd story of bureaucracy and the refugees whose lives it destroyed.
Episode 2: SULTANA’S DREAM
Sultana’s Dream depicts the hopes and shattered dreams of an elderly woman based in contemporary Calcutta through flashbacks of the experiences of women across the subcontinent.
Episode 3: SEABIRDS
Over an intimate conversation whilst cooking with her grandmother, eight-year-old Nithya learns of her family’s escape from Burma during World War II, and how new borders cut her family off from their childhood home in Rangoon.
Produced in collaboration with Puffball Studios and Spitting Image Bangalore.
Read moreAnimated Anthology
(Producer)
Atlanta Film Festival
Funded by British Council and National Geographic Society
OFF THE RECORD
Off the Record is a VR archival exploration celebrating British South Asians and their rich musical heritage, mapping the meteoric rise of Bhangra from the 1970s, to The Asian Underground and Punjabi Garage at the turn of the century.
Produced in collaboration with Emmy-Award winning “No Ghost” Studios London
Read moreVR Documentary
(Co-Creator)
Commissioned by StoryFutures and the British Film Institute
THE FIGHT FOR AUSTRALIA’S MOUNTAINS
Should natural land be considered “public” land, open to anyone, even if it’s a sacred Indigenous site? That’s the debate in Australia right now, one that’s prompting a critical look at the country’s colonial past.
Read more Reported FeatureLongform
Noema Magazine
JUSTICE, ONE SCREENSHOT AT A TIME
The strange case of the Bois Locker Room scandal and the “ethical hacker” who believes “to get justice, you need to do unethical things.”
Read moreReported Feature
Longform
Rest of World
MUSLIM SCHOLARS RECONCILING ISLAM AND AI
Artificial Intelligence is being developed in uber-secular western labs. What should devout Muslims make of it?
Read moreReported FeatureOpinion Piece
WIRED UK
PROJECT DASTAAN
Project Dastaan (داستان/दास्तान: “Story”) is a peace-building initiative which examines the human impact of global migration through the lens of the largest forced migration in recorded history, the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. We interview Partition witnesses, then reconnect them with their ancestral homes using 360VR Video.
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Funded by the CatchLight Fellowship,
Ford Foundation JustFilms,
AHRC,
Arts Council England and Australia Council for the Arts
AMMA
AMMA is an original and groundbreaking virtual reality production from Tara Theatre. Through cutting-edge 360 VR storytelling, you’ll travel across time and space to step into one woman’s memories of both the War of Independence in Bangladesh, and rebuilding a life in 1970s and 1980s Britain.
Magical and deeply affecting, AMMA takes you on a journey through stunning locations in Bangladesh, and back, to a daughter confronting the truth of her mother’s life.
See more Immersive Theatre Piece
(VR Line Producer)
Client Work for Tara Theatre (London), managing week long 360Video shoot in Bangladesh
Winner - Digital Innovation Award at the 2023 UK Theatre Awards
IMAGINING PEACE
Imagining Peace is a first-response toolkit, created with an international team of cultural exchange professionals, to support artists in conflict/post-conflict states with financial and industry resources.
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(Co-Founder)
European Union/Goethe-Institut funded project, as part of the Global Cultural Relations Platform.