Sparsh Ahuja is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist and National Geographic Explorer based in Melbourne.
His work has exhibited in venues such as The Smithsonian, Victoria & Albert and Asian Art Museums, and featured at Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, MUBI, The New Yorker, TIME, The BBC and Al Jazeera amongst others.
Sparsh Ahuja is an award-winning filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer working primarily in animation and documentary. A FitzRandolph Scholar in PPE from the University of Oxford, his work explores themes of migration, memory, and geopolitical belonging through a humanistic lens. Sparsh’s work has featured in MUBI, The New Yorker, TIME, The BBC, Al Jazeera, NOWNESS ASIA, NOEMA and The Economist.
Sparsh is the founder of Project Dastaan, a digital humanities initiative reconnecting survivors of the 1947 Partition with their ancestral homes. His 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 - financed through the Venice Biennale Gap Financing Market - premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2022, played 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 and Screen Australia’s Originate Factual incubator. In 2024, his reporting on Indigenous land rights disputes was a finalist for the LA Press Club Award.
Sparsh’s work has toured institutions such as The Smithsonian, the Asian Arts Museum, 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, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and the CatchLight Fellowship amongst others.
VicScreen, “Originate Factual” - Grantee/Participant, 2023
Ian Potter Centre – Emerging Australian Artist, Multimedia Grant, 2023
Australian International Documentary Conference, “Leading Lights” Recipient, 2023
European Union Culture in External Relations/Goethe Institut - GCRP Project Grantee, Imagining Peace, 2022
UK Research Institute/Arts and Humanities Research Council - Child of Empire Tour - with SOAS, 2022
Unity for Humanity - Accessibility Stipend, Child of Empire at Sundance, 2022
World Congress of Factual and Science Producers- Emerging Producer Bursary, 2021
Webby Awards - “Best VR Video” Nominee, 2020
Arts Council England/Digital Catapult/StoryFutures Academy - Creative XR Cohort III, 2020
British Film Institute/Doc Society - Made of Truth Short Grant, 2020
British Council - Digital Collaborations Grant, 2020
National Geographic - Early Career Exploration Grantee (Storytelling), 2020
CatchLight - Artist Fellowship, 2019
Alexia Foundation - Student Grant Shortlist, 2019
Lucie Foundation - Emerging Artist Shortlist, 2019
In the Media
VicScreen - ORIGINATE FACTUAL PROPELS HOMEGROWN TALENT ONTO THE WORLD STAGE OF PREMIUM SERIES, Oct 2023
IF Magazine - VicScreen announces 12 creatives selected for Originate Factual, Oct 2023
The New Yorker - Seventy-five Years After Indian Partition, Who Owns the Narrative?, Dec 2022
The BBC - My journey to the ‘place no-one spoke of’, Aug 2022
National Geographic - 75 years later, survivors of India’s violent partition return home—virtually, Aug 2022
The Economist - A virtual-reality film revisits the partition of British India, Feb 2022
The Hindu - Flashback 75: Partition in virtual reality in Child of Empire, Jan 2022
No Proscenium - Review, Child of Empire, Sundance New Frontier Diares, Jan 2022
The BBC - VR helps Indians and Pakistanis visit their lost homes, Aug 2021
The Quint - Taking India-Pakistan Partition Witnesses Back Home Through VR, Aug 2021
TIME - How a Refugee Revisited His Birth Village During the Pandemic—After 73 Years Away, Dec 2020
Reuters - Far from home, refugees build digital heritage with virtual reality, Sep 2020
Scroll - After seven decades, the children of Partition are going back home through virtual reality, Aug 2020
Nikkei - Virtual reality reconnects casualties of Partition with ancestral homes, Jan 2020
Dawn - Project Dastaan takes partition witnesses back home, Aug 2019
Elle - The initiative reconnecting survivors of Partition with the homes they left behind, Dec 2018
Herald Sun - VCE Leadership Awards sees Sparsh Ahuja committed to empowering others to engage in world issue, Nov 2015
United States
Smithsonian – National Museum of Asian Art
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
Sundance Film Festival
SXSW Film Festival
Atlanta Film Festival
Palm Springs Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
Harvard Kennedy School
University of Iowa Summer Seminar
Yale University
MIT Media Lab
Maysles Documentary Centre, Harlem
United Kingdom
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
British Film Institute Southbank, London
Birmingham Museum
Derby Museum
Bradford Cathedral
Sundance London
Sheffield DocFest
Belfast XR Festival
SOAS University of London
Oxford University
UK Parliament - Partition Education Working Group
Partition Museum, Amritsar
Partition Museum, Delhi
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi
Hans Raj College, Delhi
Ashoka University
AJK MCRC, Delhi
Kamla Nehru College, Delhi
Jindal School of Languages
Dharamsala International Film Festival
Pakistan
National History Museum, Lahore
Habib University, Karachi
National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore
ArtChowk, Karachi
Australia
Melbourne International Film Festival
Immigration Museum, Melbourne
4A Centre for Asian Art - Sydney (upcoming, late 2025)
France
ForumDesImages, Paris
Select Conferences/Workshops:
Games for Change, Parsons School of Design NYC, Virtual Bridges for Refugee Communities, Jul 2025
British Council Delhi, Student Awards Alumni Night, Jun 2025
World Archaeology Summit, AlUla Saudi Arabia, Saving Archaeology One TikTok at a Time, Sep 2023
Bangalore International Centre, Workshop on Animation and Production, Feb 2023
Unity for Humanity - Changing the World with Immersive Storytelling, Jan 2022
Syracuse University - Virtual Narratives: Evolving Storytelling Through Gaming Platforms, Jan 2022 Double Exposure Symposium x MIT Media Lab - Making the Metaverse, Dec 2021
Geneva Peace Week, Rotary Action Group for Peace Incubator, 2020
TedXIGDTU - Crossing Borders with Technology, 2020
Innovate UK: Child of Empire Case Study
This white paper was commissioned by the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network, the UK government’s leading network for immersive technology innovators, and Arts Council England. It examines the experience of the independent XR creators of ‘Childof Empire’, who were able to successfully navigate turning their idea into a fully realized internationally touring piece of immersive work.
The UK is home to some of the best producers of immersive content in the world. Despite significant growth in the sector and wider adoption of the technology in recent years, the barriers to entry to immersive production remain quite high, especially for those outside of established production companies.
This white paper looks at challenges the project faced with the creative process, building the right team, accessing funding, and touring the work to a wide range of international venues. We hope the deep dive into this project’s production journey, and the key lessons learned from the team can offer insight to creatives who are just getting started in immersive production.
Download here
The Partition - Teacher’s Guide by Stanford University
The 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan was a complex and tragic event with profound and lasting consequences for the region. Following over a century under British East India Company rule and an additional 90 years of the British Raj, the Indian subcontinent ultimately attained independence. What should have been a celebratory moment after years of anti-colonial struggle resulted in unimaginable violence and bloodshed instead.
Project Dastaan is a peace-building initiative that utilizes bespoke digital experiences to reconnect displaced refugees of the Partition with their childhood communities, offering a unique perspective on the human impact of the largest forced migration in recorded history.
A free classroom-friendly discussion guide is available for download below. Activities in this guide include a pre-test, informational handout and assignment, and an exercise in conflict analysis. In addition, there is an extension activity that tasks students to research different modern-day conflicts, as well as an optional activity where students view short film(s) and engage in a post-viewing discussion.
SPICE is appreciative of the support of Project Dastaan for their permission to use some of the visuals and interviews from their project in this guide. Screen the films here (password: Curriculum).
SPICE’s partnership with CatchLight is made possible by the generous support of the Chao Minami Family Fund.
Download here
BAFTA x British Council x BFI Network - “Short Film Toolkit”
BFI NETWORK have created this comprehensive, free-to-access Short Film Toolkit in partnership with BAFTA and the British Council.
Over 50% of filmmakers are thought to have entered the industry via shorts, yet some – without established industry connections – can find routes in challenging to navigate.
This toolkit, the first of its kind, is an easy to use, comprehensive, digital guide with insights from over 40 filmmakers, funders, festival programmers and distributors, unlocking vital insights and advice for aspiring talent to help them get the most out of their short film journey and accelerate their careers.
Download here
Grant Writing & Creative Strategy
I work as a freelance creative strategist, helping individuals, organisations, and creative projects secure funding and build meaningful partnerships. Based in Melbourne and working internationally, I’ve raised over $680,000 AUD for initiatives across the arts, cultural exchange, and climate justice, supporting projects in Australia, the UK, Europe, and the United States.
Whether you’re applying for arts funding, government grants, or social impact tenders, I offer support across the full grant lifecycle. This includes writing thoughtful, effective proposals that speak to funder priorities, costing realistic budgets, advising on partnership and support letters, and creating visual attachments like trailers or pitch decks. I also help manage reporting requirements and acquittals, with clear narratives and financial summaries.
I’ve secured funding from institutions including Arts Council England, Creative Australia, the British Council, The Ford Foundation, National Geographic, Goethe-Institut, AHRC and UKRI, Innovate UK, Screen Australia, and VicScreen. Clients and collaborators have included South Asian History Month in the UK and Brown Women Comedy in Australia, as well as individual artist submissions to fellowships and residencies around the world.
Recent and ongoing projects include an impact strategy for the Cambodian Children’s Trust and an archival engagement for a major museum in Malaysia, I am also a member of the Global Impact Producers Alliance (GIPA).
I have also served as a Peer Assessor for Creative Victoria’s Creator’s Fund for Screen, and previously worked as a strategy associate at the Boston Consulting Group in London. I’m skilled at handling complex ideas and communicating them clearly, whether in policy-driven documentation, storytelling, or strategic proposals.
If you need support with grant writing, funding strategy, or reporting, I’d love to chat. Whether you’re looking for guidance through the whole process or just one part of it, we can work together to get your project the support it needs.
Book a meeting with me today
Imagining Peace
Imagining Peace is a digital project that supports cultural initiatives in peacebuilding. It was initially funded by the Global Cultural Relations Programme, a flagship initiative of the Cultural Relations Platform supported by the European Union and delivered in partnership with the Goethe-Institut. The programme brings together cultural practitioners and artists from across the globe to exchange ideas, build networks, and collaborate on creative responses to shared challenges.
Our work highlights artistic practices that contribute to peacebuilding in regions affected by conflict and its aftermath. At the heart of the project is an interactive web toolkit designed to spark creativity and offer insight into multidisciplinary approaches to cultural healing, resilience, and reconciliation.
The team behind Imagining Peace first met through the 2021 edition of the Global Cultural Relations Programme, which was held online during the pandemic. After a collaborative development period across five time zones, we pitched our idea to a group of over 60 international cultural professionals and were selected as one of three projects to receive seed funding. In 2022, we had the opportunity to meet in person in Brussels at the next edition of the programme, where we continued building momentum around the toolkit and platform.
As Co-Founder and Digital Platform Lead, I helped shape the project from concept to launch. I led on digital design, editorial direction, and user experience, helping create a responsive platform tailored to artists working in conflict and post-conflict environments.
Access the toolkit here
Tutoring & University Admissions
I currently work as an Admissions Specialist with Crimson Consulting, where I have delivered over 170 hours of one-on-one mentorship for students applying to top UK universities. My work focuses on helping applicants craft compelling personal narratives, sharpen their interview skills, and communicate with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Students I’ve mentored have gone on to receive offers from Oxford, Cambridge, and other world-leading institutions.I bring over five years of experience as a private tutor, having supported hundreds of students from early primary years to A-Level candidates. I tutor a wide range of subjects, including English, English Literature, Economics, Maths, Politics, Legal Studies, and Philosophy. I am also experienced in preparing students for TSA testing.
In Australia, I have worked across both public and private education sectors, coaching debating and public speaking at some of Melbourne’s most prestigious schools such as Scotch College, Haileybury, and Trinity Grammar. I also served as a lecturer with Connect Education, one of Melbourne’s largest educational companies, where I taught VCE French, English, and Legal Studies. My lectures consistently received outstanding feedback and were rated well above the company’s internal performance metrics.
Here’s what some of my students and collaborators have said:
“Sparsh provides really detailed assistance and great resources, including exam revision tips, timetables, and practice material. He has an impressive vocabulary and a strong ability to help students elevate their writing.” – Evy Y, English and Legal Studies student
“Sparsh delivered many important lectures for us in VCE French, English, and Legal Studies, all of which were incredibly well-reviewed. He consistently exceeded our recommendation benchmarks and quality standards. His presentations to audiences of 50 to 100 students were clear, engaging, and insightful.” – Lex Ituarte, CEO, Connect Education
Whether supporting an Oxbridge applicant or a VCE student preparing for final exams, I aim to bring thoughtful, high-impact guidance that builds skill and confidence beyond the classroom.
Book a meeting with me today