Jayakrishnan Subramanian

Jayakrishnan Subramanian was born in 1978 in Cuddalore (Kadalur), a district State of Tamil Nadu. He completed his degree of Bachelors from Madras University of Fine Arts in Chennai, and he went on to study Graphic Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad in 2006 for three years, and while in his course, he met Franziska Schönenberger (German journalist and filmmaker) whom he further married. Since they became a couple, both were jointly involved in the projects. For two years, he worked at an Indian company, Godrej, as a Graphic designer. He then moved to Germany to complete his Master's in Media Arts at Bauhaus University Weimar in 2014. Besides graphic designing, Jayakrishnan was also interested in filmmaking, cinematography, landscape photography, and animation. His landscapes include themes like separation and longing of the migrants.

From 2015-16 he is working on a landscape project that includes these themes and combines the works of Tamil poetry and Sangam Literature. The project also inaugurates new ways of research in the field of arts. Jayakrishnan, with Franziska, made a family documentary about how they overcame the cultural differences involving their parents, being from two different states and cultures. The documentary was named Amma and Appa, released in 2014, premiered at the German Film Festival (Berlinale), and screened at Mumbai Film Festival. As a graphic designer, he continued his work, contributing his poster design for the films like Miss Else in 2013, Geschwister in 2016, and Die Farbe der Sehnsucht (The Colour of Yearning) in 2016.

Jayakrishnan also worked as a co-director for a film by Schönenberger Die Schatten der Wüste (Shadows of the Desert), which takes note of the mysterious death of a relative of Jayakrishnan (a temporary Indian worker) in Dubai. This film became the start of the study field of migrants conditions in the Arab States. Shadows of the Desert just like the first documentary premiered at DOK Film Festival in Munich and was released in Germany and India (in the Tamil language) in 2018, starring Hemachandran Baskaran, Hemalatha Baskaran, Baskaran Dhanabal, and Sundari Durairaj (original characters of film story of Schönenberger).