The District of Columbia Office of Motion Picture and Television Development (MPTD) is pleased to recognize award-winning filmmaker and documentarian Harjant Gill, as the May Filmmaker of the Month in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Born and raised in Chandigarh, India, Harjant studied visual anthropology and ethnographic film at San Francisco State University before pursuing his PhD in anthropology at American University. Drawing from his anthropology background, his films explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, religion, citizenship, transnationality, and notions of belonging with a particular focus on Indian and South Asian diasporic masculinities.
Harjant founded Tilotama Productions with a goal to create films that cast a spotlight on urgent and often overlooked social issues such as gender inequity and the rights of sexual minorities. His films include Milind Soman Made Me Gay, which explores the notion of home and belonging among gay South Asians, and Roots of Love, which explores the changing significance of hair and turbans among Sikhs in India. His latest film, Mardistan (Macholand), is an exploration of Indian manhood focusing on issues of sexual violence, son preference and homophobia. Mardistan was recently featured at the 2015 Asian Pacific American Film Festival in the District. His films have screened at film festivals, academic conferences and on television networks worldwide including BBC, Doordarshan (Indian National TV) and PBS.
Earlier this year, Harjant was awarded the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship and the Fejos Postdoctoral Fellowship by Wenner Gren Foundation. The two awards will allow him to take a year off from teaching to develop his forthcoming documentary film Sent Away Boys, which looks at the effects of globalization and transnational migration on India’s provincial economy. Set against the backdrop of a crumbling agricultural economy, the film asks what happens to masculinity and patriarchal gender relations in villages across Punjab where most young unmarried men have either left the country or have aspired to leave.
Harjant is also an assistant professor of anthropology at Towson University, Maryland and was selected as a Youth Action Net Fellow (2003) and Point Foundation alum (2006-11). He also has served on the board of directors of Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) and co-directed the SVA Film Festival (2012-14).
Harjant resides in Ward 6 of the District of Columbia.
MPTD launched the Filmmaker of the Month initiative to feature a District-based filmmaker who exemplifies the vast amount of talent and creativity based here in the nation’s capital. The Filmmaker of the Month initiative is part of MPTD’s mission to elevate the national and international profile of the city’s most talented filmmakers. Previous filmmakers honored include veteran filmmaker Judy Hallet; Emmy Award-winning producer/director Dave Lilling; 20/20 Productions and DC Web Fest founder Otessa Ghadar; and award-winning comedian, filmmaker and actor Tommy Taylor, Jr.
You can visit the Filmmaker of the Month section to learn more about Harjant and previous Filmmaker of the Month recipients.