Shirley Abraham

Shirley Abraham is a Cannes prize-winning Indian documentary filmmaker. Her work is supported by Sundance Institute, MacArthur Foundation, The New York Times, The Guardian, Field of Vision, IDFA Bertha Fund, Catapult Film Fund, and the BBC. She has been a fellow of Sundance Labs, Cluster of Excellence Heidelberg, and Goethe-Institut. Abraham is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Cinema Travellers, co directed with Amit Madheshiya, is her debut film. It premiered as the only Indian feature playing the Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival 2016. It won the Special Jury Prize for L’Oeil d’or: Le Prix du documentaire. The film has since played 125 festivals, and won nineteen awards globally, including the President’s Medal in India. She has also directed Searching for Saraswati (The New York Times) and The Hour of Lynching (The Guardian). The Hour of Lynching won a World Press Photo and the Sandford St Martin Journalism Award.