INSIDE/OUTSIDE (2019) 94 minutes. Produced and Directed by Nandini Sikand. A feature length documentary about incarcerated women reentering the community in the Lehigh Valley, PA. Awarded a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2015 Richard King Mellon Research ARC Fellowship.
ONE, IF BY LAND (2015) 14 minutes. Written, Produced & Directed by Nandini Sikand –An experimental short film that explores the politics of undocumented immigration to the global North via land, sea and air. Inspired by three stories of real voyages made from Mexico, China and Mozambique, this film looks at the impossibility of arrival, a visual commemoration of the unknown immigrant. Read more…
SLIGHTEST SHIFTS (2012) 10 minutes. Directed by Nandini Sikand and Andy Smith — Performed in a reclaimed industrial space, this film (re)imagines the “slightest shifts” that take place within our bodies and our surroundings as we reach toward and lay claim to new possibilities. Choreographed & Written by Carrie Rohman. Performed by Carrie Rohman and Kristin Garbarino. Edited by Joel Vargas.
CRANES OF HOPE (2011) 17 minutes. Directed by Nandini Sikand — Cranes of Hope is a documentary short about thousands of origami cranes, a boy named David Heard and the power of his dreams.
SOMA GIRLS (2009) 27 minutes. Directed by Nandini Sikand and Alexia Prichard — Soma Girls explores the lives of girls growing up in a hostel in Kolkata, India. From ages 6 to 17, the film follows these intelligent, funny and high-energy girls as they overcome extraordinary circumstances to lead ordinary lives.
IN WHOSE NAME? (2004) 11 minutes. Written and directed by Nandini Sikand — A filmic essay which explores the co-opting of icons by political agendas. This experimental short is told through personal narrative, Super 8mm home movies, Bollywood film clips and comic book art.
AMAZONIA (2001) 8 minutes. Directed by Nandini Sikand — In this highly personal and visually evocative testimonial, critically acclaimed South Asian filmmaker Nandini Sikand poignantly presents her sister’s triumphal recovery from the emotional and physical scars of breast cancer. Lyrically incorporating poetry, experimental video and Super-8 montage, this moving piece looks at the myth of Amazonian women – warriors who were said to have cut off their right breast to become better archers – and compares their legendary battles to the war being waged against breast cancer.
MAHASWETA DEVI (2001) 33 minutes. Producer, Nandini Sikand — At the center of a half-century of tumultuous change, the lifetime of Mahasweta Devi has spanned the British period, Independence, and fifty years of postcolonial turmoil. A celebrated writer and tireless activist; Her most recent crusade has been on the behalf of the De-notified tribes of India – indigenous groups who were branded “natural criminals” by the British Colonial State, who face discrimination to this day, despite being “de-notified.”
DON’T FENCE ME IN (1998) 55 minutes. Directed by Nandini Sikand — Against the broader backdrop of modern India’s political and social history, this lyrical documentary tells the story of the life of Krishna Sikand, the filmmaker’s mother, from childhood to maturity.
THE BHANGRA WRAP (1994) 20 minutes. Directed by Nandini Sikand — The Bhangra Wrap is an energetic documentary of a vibrant youth subculture that fuses hip hop, rap and Bhangra music. Based mainly in New York and Toronto, Bhangra House is propagated through alternative radio, party DJs and hip urban clubs where South Asian youth have carved out their own unique sense of style, identity and voice that is an uncompromised mix of old and new, South Asian and American.