SPARSH AHUJA
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.
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BACK | LOST MIGRATIONS
STREAMING ON MUBI AND NOWNESS ASIA
Funded by The British Council and National Geographic Society
Official Selections:
Atlanta Film Festival (Rest in Paper)
British Film Institute Southbank (World Premiere)
Lost Migrations is a three-part animated series which tells the untold stories of the Partition through the voices of the colonised. Most of the literature and cultural exploration of Partition has focused on the division of the province of Punjab by British authorities in 1947.
Lost Migrations focusses on the untold stories of 1947 from other regions and communities in South Asia. Each episode sheds light on a community that has been excluded from South Asian literature and historiography: women, the Chettiar diaspora and the stateless. This project aims to showcase the diverse voices of the subcontinent in an engaging way, combining local artistic styles and traditions that celebrate the individuality of each community.
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.
Production Company:
Dastaan Films Pvt Ltd/Puffball Studios/Spitting Image Bangalore
Countries of Production: United Kingdom / India / Pakistan