Documentary films wake you up and shake you up.
Anand Kamalakar is a Brooklyn based documentary film director, producer and editor. 300 Miles to Freedom, Garwin, Holy (un)Holy River, Colonel Kalsi and Salam are some of the films he has directed.
His last film Salam - The first ***** Nobel Laureate has screened in over thirty cities around the world and has won a number of international awards. It streamed on Netflix and is now available on Kanopy, Apple TV+ and GooglePlay.
Heart of Stone, a film he produced and edited, won over ten awards including Best Film at Slamdance Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, and Cinequest Film Festival. It also won an award for Best Editing at the Santa Fe Film Festival. Anand worked as an editor for Primetime (ABC), Dateline (NBC) and 20/20 (ABC) and was the editor of the 2004 Emmy nominated ABC special on the Iraq war titled Brothers in Arms. Anand was also a creative consultant on the academy award-winning documentary Born Into Brothels. Holy (un)Holy River, a film he co-directed and edited, premiered at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival and has won several awards around the world.
His latest film Colonel Kalsi:Beyond the Call screened at the Sebastapol Documentary Film Festival and the New York Indian Film Festival. Where it nominated for best documentary. Colonel Kalsi won best documentary at Chicago South Asian Film Festival and DC South Asian Film Festival. It also won best director at Cincinnati Indian Film Festival.
Anand is currently directing an ITVS funded film titled Osborne.
He is the co-founder of the Brooklyn based arts company, Trilok Fusion Arts, Inc. and Trilok Fusion Media. He has also taught as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University , School of Visual Arts, New York and recently at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, Brooklyn College, CUNY. He has also been a guest faculty at the Tisch Film School, New York University, and Parsons School of Design, The New School University.
Anand has masters degrees in film production, media studies and mass communications from Syracuse University, Bowling Green State University, and University of Hyderabad.
Apart from making films and listening and playing the Blues, Anand writes a blog on the state of the world we live in.