Shirley Abraham is a Cannes prize-winning Indian documentary filmmaker. As a child, she came to the movies by rebellion. She watched them in secret—covering the television screen with a cloth, making her own magical cave.
The Cinema Travellers, her debut film made in collaboration with Amit Madheshiya, premiered as an Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival 2016, winning 19 awards globally. Shirley and Amit have since made a trilogy of shorts: Searching for Saraswati (New York Times Op-Docs), The Hour of Lynching (Guardian Documentaries), and The Great Abandonment (Guardian Documentaries). Their films have earned numerous national and international honors, including the World Press Photo, the Human Rights Watch Award, the Rory Peck Trust Award and the President’s Medal in India.
Shirley’s work is supported by the Sundance Institute, Pulitzer Center, IDFA Bertha Fund, Chicken & Egg, Field of Vision, InMaat Foundation, Lannan Foundation, and Catapult Film Fund, among others. She has been a fellow with the Sundance Labs, MacArthur Foundation, Cluster of Excellence Heidelberg, Diane Weyermann Fellowship with Points North, and the Democracy Story Lab with Doc Society. She is a member of the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She has served as a juror and panelist at festivals around the world, and is currently on the International Engagement Committee of the Academy.
During her time at Shorenstein, she will be researching freedom of thought as the beating heart of the independent voice. Can one create memories of the future even as the dissenting voice finds itself choked around the world today?
