Madhusree Dutta

Madhusree Dutta is a filmmaker, novelist, and curator born in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Jadavpur University in Kolkata and a master's degree in drama from the National School of Drama in New Delhi. In 1987, Dutta relocated to Mumbai. Dutta served one of the juries of the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) Shorts in 2015, Feminale: International Women's Film Festival, Cologne in 2006, Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, St. Petersburg in 2001, and the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala in 2009. She also served as the Chairperson of the jury of the SIGNS Festival of Digital Videos in 2014. MIFF (Mumbai International Documentary Festival) hosted her retrospectives in 2018; In 2008, she participated in the Persistence Resistance Film Festival in Delhi; in 2007, she participated in the Madurai Film Festival; and in 2001, she participated in the NGBK Gallery in Berlin.

She is based in Cologne, Germany. Since 2018, she has served as the Artistic Director of the Akademie der Kunste der Welt in Cologne. Dutta has been chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award for Documentaries at Kerala's 12th International Documentary and Short Film Festival (IDSFFK), from June 21 to 26. When Madhusree Dutta coordinated EXPRESSION, the first female arts festival, in 1990, she brought creative practices, activism, and pedagogy together in one platform. Her work focuses on gender construction, urban development, public art, and documentary techniques, among other topics.

Filmmaker Philip Scheffner and photo artist Ines Schaber from Berlin, theatre director Anuradha Kapur from Delhi, visual artist Nilima Sheikh from Baroda, Archana Hande and architect Rohan Shivkumar from Mumbai, and playwright Malini Bhattacharya from Kolkata are some of the artists with whom she has collaborated for various works. Dutta began her career in Kolkata with the Bengali theatre troupe Anarjya (non-Aryans). She was also a member of the Kolkata-based feminist group Sachetana's cadre. In 1994, a documentary about a Muslim ghetto in Mumbai during communal rioting earned the Filmfare Award.