Biography

JIJO (he/they) is an emerging director, producer and screenwriter. Spanning both documentary, narrative and commercial worlds, his award-winning work explores humanism, systems of power and contemporary culture.

Born in Mumbai and raised in London, his pursuit of impact storytelling has earned recognitions such as IMDb's New Filmmaker of the Year, two Cannes Young Director Award wins, Best Documentary at Cannes Short Film Festival and a place on the TV Collective Breakthrough Leaders program, BFI x BAFTA Crew as well as Bafta Connect.

Human stories are the heart of JIJO's work, examining issues like social justice, human rights, the environment and culture and taking him to over 60 countries. He has produced multimedia reports, films and commercials for clients ranging from Google to Universal Music Group, BBC Studios, Microsoft, Pinterest and The British Museum to Save the Children and Choose Love.

Since 2017, he expanded his work towards more cinematic and longer-form visual storytelling. Since then he has written five short films. In 2019, his drama, Moonlight Dreams was selected in several Oscar and Bafta-qualifying festivals, premiering in the UK at Raindance and launching online on Nowness and Omeleto. His narrative series, F*ckbois - a 6 episode 30min comedy-drama exploring masculinity and mental health - has been option for funded development. And his latest, ambitious 25-min short KALI (2023) is a neo-noir thriller set in India which has won several awards on the festival circuit and is in active development as a TV series. His debut feature Secrets of the Delta, a climate-thriller set between India and the UK, is in development, selected for the BBC Writers and Film London backed 'Hot House' lab.

Across factual, JIJO often works as a self-shooting producer/director for broadcast, including for BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and Discovery. He has led observational and formatted programs across Europe and Asia, while his independent documentary work has won development support and funding from BFI Doc Society, Creative England and been selected for screenings at Tribeca, Sundance London and the Houses of Parliament.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, he directed 6-part performance film series Silent Spaces commissioned by Arts Council England. This won Best Direction at the LA Music Video Awards in 2021, and he continues to collaborate with the best upcoming talents to direct music promos and documentaries.

JIJO also worked as Deputy Head of Creative and Senior Director at RDContent - a global advertising agency and production company - before in 2022 founding Just Be Nice, a multimedia creative studio dedicated to optimistic and empathy-building impact storytelling for the modern era. Today, his work builds cinematic stories that foster empathy and challenge minds.
- IMDb mini biography by: Souvid Datta