Sidharth Srinivasan
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Sidharth Srinivasan is an independent filmmaker based out of New Delhi, India. Sidharth's childhood love for make-believe and storytelling grew into a fascination for cinema and he decided to become a filmmaker while still a high school student at the Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh.
Driven by a passion for atypical cinema rooted in original storytelling, Sidharth's films have been selected to numerous international film festivals, including Venice, Toronto and Rotterdam and received numerous awards along the way. Sidharth's work aspires towards the poetic and provocative, the outré and iconoclastic.
Graduating from St. Stephen's College (Delhi University) with an honours degree in Economics in 1997, Sidharth eschewed a formal film school education and began assisting the renowned avant-garde filmmaker Kumar Shahani, himself a student of Ritwik Ghatak and Robert Bresson.
Post-apprenticeship, Sidharth knew he had to deep dive to convert make-believe into making movies. Made by the skin of the teeth after begging, borrowing and managing to score a few cans of 2-year old fog-tested 35 mm stock, his debut short Swamohita (aka The Tightrope Walker) had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2000. Sidharth was 23 years old at the time.
Sidharth followed this up in 2001 with the subversive micro-budget indie Divya Drishti (aka The Divine Vision). The venture was ahead of its time, not only for being India's first digital feature film (it was shot on MiniDV), but also for its colorful language and frank depiction of the secret sexual lives - straight and gay - of working-class India. Shot in just 7 days for under US$ 10,000, Divya Drishti was banned by the Indian censors but won numerous awards and travelled the festival circuit extensively.
Sidharth's first quasi-mainstream film Amavas was unique for being a gore-drenched, supernatural thriller san the obligatory song and dance routine, an oddity for Bollywood circa 2005. Unfortunately, the producers unilaterally shelved this strange little film, and it never released. At 28, Sidharth was learning the hard way what it means to make films, his own way. After living for over 3 years with Amavas and with nothing to show for his efforts, Sidharth resolved never to direct again without having creative control over his own work.
Pulling up his bootstraps, Sidharth wrote, produced and directed the feature Pairon Talle (Soul of Sand) under his own independent label Reel Illusion Films which he established in 2007. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010, had its US premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) and its European premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2011.
Sidharth managed to sell Pairon Talle to the Global Film Initiative for multi-platform rights in North America and to the Hubert Bals Fund for Benelux. In India, the film received a niche theatrical release from PVR Films and was acquired by India's national broadcaster Doordarshan for its "Best of Indian Cinema" showcase.
True to form, Sidharth reinvested the returns from Pairon Talle in his new feature, an Indo-UK copro titled Kriya in 2018. Shot in a mere 10 days, Kriya is an uncategorizable, genre-driven arthouse film and has been produced by Reel Illusion Films alongside Accord Equips Pvt Ltd and veteran production executive B. S. Narayanaswamy who has been associated with the films of Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Kamal Swaroop, Murali Nair and, most recently, Chaitanya Tamhane. Kriya is co-produced by British film industry stalwarts Andy Starke and Pete Tombs. The film is due to premiere - in competition - at the venerable Fantasia International Film Festival 2020 in Montreal, Canada.
During the long gaps between features, Sidharth discovered the liberating gift of documentary filmmaking and has made numerous non-fiction films and shorts. In 2015, his documentary feature Bahurupiya (aka Wearer of Faces) played over 10 festivals including the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) and the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films (MIFF), India's pre-eminent documentary film festivals. Bahurupiya was telecast on Doordarshan and is one of the few Indian films acquired for broadcast on EBS, Korea.
Sidharth is also actively involved in film pedagogy and has served as a guest lecturer at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), mentoring students on both screenwriting and documentary filmmaking. He was also involved as a mentor to students on their diploma films at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication (SACAC).
Sidharth has numerous projects in development, including the feature films Traas (aka The Profane), Balaa (aka The Offering) and Aahuti (aka The Waif) and an untitled neo-nor web series.
Driven by a passion for atypical cinema rooted in original storytelling, Sidharth's films have been selected to numerous international film festivals, including Venice, Toronto and Rotterdam and received numerous awards along the way. Sidharth's work aspires towards the poetic and provocative, the outré and iconoclastic.
Graduating from St. Stephen's College (Delhi University) with an honours degree in Economics in 1997, Sidharth eschewed a formal film school education and began assisting the renowned avant-garde filmmaker Kumar Shahani, himself a student of Ritwik Ghatak and Robert Bresson.
Post-apprenticeship, Sidharth knew he had to deep dive to convert make-believe into making movies. Made by the skin of the teeth after begging, borrowing and managing to score a few cans of 2-year old fog-tested 35 mm stock, his debut short Swamohita (aka The Tightrope Walker) had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2000. Sidharth was 23 years old at the time.
Sidharth followed this up in 2001 with the subversive micro-budget indie Divya Drishti (aka The Divine Vision). The venture was ahead of its time, not only for being India's first digital feature film (it was shot on MiniDV), but also for its colorful language and frank depiction of the secret sexual lives - straight and gay - of working-class India. Shot in just 7 days for under US$ 10,000, Divya Drishti was banned by the Indian censors but won numerous awards and travelled the festival circuit extensively.
Sidharth's first quasi-mainstream film Amavas was unique for being a gore-drenched, supernatural thriller san the obligatory song and dance routine, an oddity for Bollywood circa 2005. Unfortunately, the producers unilaterally shelved this strange little film, and it never released. At 28, Sidharth was learning the hard way what it means to make films, his own way. After living for over 3 years with Amavas and with nothing to show for his efforts, Sidharth resolved never to direct again without having creative control over his own work.
Pulling up his bootstraps, Sidharth wrote, produced and directed the feature Pairon Talle (Soul of Sand) under his own independent label Reel Illusion Films which he established in 2007. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010, had its US premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) and its European premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2011.
Sidharth managed to sell Pairon Talle to the Global Film Initiative for multi-platform rights in North America and to the Hubert Bals Fund for Benelux. In India, the film received a niche theatrical release from PVR Films and was acquired by India's national broadcaster Doordarshan for its "Best of Indian Cinema" showcase.
True to form, Sidharth reinvested the returns from Pairon Talle in his new feature, an Indo-UK copro titled Kriya in 2018. Shot in a mere 10 days, Kriya is an uncategorizable, genre-driven arthouse film and has been produced by Reel Illusion Films alongside Accord Equips Pvt Ltd and veteran production executive B. S. Narayanaswamy who has been associated with the films of Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Kamal Swaroop, Murali Nair and, most recently, Chaitanya Tamhane. Kriya is co-produced by British film industry stalwarts Andy Starke and Pete Tombs. The film is due to premiere - in competition - at the venerable Fantasia International Film Festival 2020 in Montreal, Canada.
During the long gaps between features, Sidharth discovered the liberating gift of documentary filmmaking and has made numerous non-fiction films and shorts. In 2015, his documentary feature Bahurupiya (aka Wearer of Faces) played over 10 festivals including the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) and the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films (MIFF), India's pre-eminent documentary film festivals. Bahurupiya was telecast on Doordarshan and is one of the few Indian films acquired for broadcast on EBS, Korea.
Sidharth is also actively involved in film pedagogy and has served as a guest lecturer at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), mentoring students on both screenwriting and documentary filmmaking. He was also involved as a mentor to students on their diploma films at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication (SACAC).
Sidharth has numerous projects in development, including the feature films Traas (aka The Profane), Balaa (aka The Offering) and Aahuti (aka The Waif) and an untitled neo-nor web series.
