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.
Sultana’ s Dream - Animated Short [Producer]
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. 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.
This episode depicts the hopes and shattered dreams of an elderly woman based in contemporary Calcutta. Flashbacks appear of various women’s experiences during Partition, including forced religious conversion, abuse and abduction.
Sultana’s Dream is inspired by Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain’s groundbreaking 1905 feminist text of the same name and the works of Urvashi Butalia. This episode juxtaposes the aesthetics of documentary filmmaking with textures and character designs inspired by Pahadi and Mughal miniature paintings, and artists like Nainsukh and Abanindranath Tagore.
Funded by British Council and National Geographic Society
World Premiere - BFI Southbank
STREAMING on MUBI and NOWNESS ASIA
A film by Project Dastaan & Spitting Image
Directed and animated by Sandhya Visvanathan, Aniruddh Menon, Shoumik Biswas and Aditya Bharadwaj
Lost Migrations produced in collaboration with Puffball Studios and Spitting Image Bangalore.