Filmmaker, Writer, Photographer,
Poet, Traveller, Storyteller and
a million things to be.
An overview of the director’s work in cinema. The projects here reflect an ongoing engagement with storytelling through film, across different periods of practice, alongside selected projects and collaborations.
Hearing the Fingers (2020)
is a documentary film created that later developed into a theatre production.
The work examines the early experiences of a family after learning that their son is deaf and non-speaking, and follows their gradual shift from uncertainty to recognition. As his aptitude for visual expression becomes evident, the narrative centres on the emergence of his artistic practice. The film offers an intimate study of Amit Vardhan, an artist whose primary mode of communication is his art, and reflects on creativity as a language shaped by perception, gesture, and touch.
Chiraiya Chaahe Aasmaan (2018)
is a short film that narrates the life of an eleven-year-old girl compelled into child labour by her parents, who place economic survival above her education. The film traces her everyday experiences of neglect and exploitation, both within her home and in the household where she works, where she is subjected to persistent mistreatment. The title gestures toward her unspoken desire for freedom, a longing to escape the constraints that prevent her from imagining another life. Directed by Manan Kathuria, the film received UNICEF’s Golden Youth for Child Rights Award at the All India Short Film Competition, JCFF 2018.
Kon Shudh, Kon Ashudh? (2019)
is a parallel-edit short fiction film written and directed by Manan Kathuria. Internationally nominated at the Lift Off Global Network, the film constructs a visual contrast between two lives within the same city, one marked by privilege and excess, the other by restraint and care. Through everyday actions, the narrative reveals how environmental harm is often produced unconsciously, while responsibility frequently rests with those least empowered. The closing sequence turns this contrast inward, reflecting a shared and ongoing sense of ecological guilt. At its core, the film reflects on choice, asking who truly preserves and who contaminates.
Sar Ghume (2025)
is a music video released in 2025, in collaboration with the Aahvaan Project.
Through a sequence of images and moving frames it reflects on personal agency, endurance, and the subtle demands of standing one’s ground in the face of shifting realities. The piece unfolds as a meditation on presence and becoming, inviting viewers into moments of stillness and motion alike.
Shot and directed with a focus on experiential intimacy, the music video charts a quiet but rigorous investigation into how we hold space for ourselves and others.
Bikhar Gaya Moti (2023)
is a montage film featuring Geetanjali Kulkarni.
The work unfolds as a visual essay that assembles fragments of gesture, presence, and form into a textured portrait of being and becoming.
This piece invites reflection on how singular figures, gestures, and expressions accumulate meaning over time, much like pearls cast and gathered. In its quiet sequencing it becomes a study of care, surface, and attentive looking where what is seen and what is felt are held in delicate relation.
Rajman Talkies Aftermovie (2022) is a long-form aftermovie that reflects on Manan’s personal journey with filmmaking. This work assembles moments from lived experience, early beginnings with a first camera, the making of award-winning films, and the evolving ways in which movement and observation inform creative practice. Interwoven within the film are reflections on the processes behind Imtihaan and Hearing the Fingers, alongside an honest acknowledgment of uncertainty, setbacks, and perseverance. As an aftermovie, it holds a shared passage of emotions, moving from vulnerability, and from aspiration to lived reality.
An Evening at Lodhi Garden (2023)
is a montage film, set against a quiet, unassuming landscape, the film unfolds slowly, observing moments of release and reflection within the everyday. Its pace mirrors the act of lingering, of sitting still and allowing the world to move, soften, and reveal itself. Through the attentive capture of small gestures and passing emotions, the film reflects on the intimacy of ordinary life and invites a gentle introspection of the surroundings we often overlook. Though deeply personal in its making, it remains open to varied interpretations, offering viewers a sense of warmth and stillness rather than conclusion.
Artists (2025)
It reflects on the quiet intensity of being an artist in the world. Moving through phases, being close to nature, shifting forms, dancing with a brush, painting a life shaped by melancholy, metaphors, and mindfulness, this short film reflects on making, living, and becoming. It speaks of holding on to stories, archiving them quietly for the future. To be an artist here is shown as a blessing, an act of kindness, a way of feeling life deeply and becoming a voice. The artist's world is intimate, her story significant, and her art speaks for itself. An ongoing series documenting the lives of artists who continue to shape their own worlds.