Screening and Discussion: Lost Migrations

  • Screening and Discussion: Lost Migrations Event Image

    Date

    Friday, April 11, 2025
    7:00 pm–9:00 pm

    Location

    Freer Gallery of Art
    Meyer Auditorium

Description

In Person: Filmmakers Sparsh Ahuja and Sam Dalrymple

In Lost Migrations, three animated short films recount the 1947 Partition of India through personal stories from communities normally excluded from the narrative. After the screening, discuss with the filmmakers and learn about their peace-building initiative, Project Dastaan.

Project Dastaan (داستان‎/दास्तान: “Story”) is a peace-building initiative reconnecting individuals displaced during the 1947 Partition with their ancestral villages through Virtual Reality. Dastaan has conducted, filmed, and edited interviews in five languages with Partition survivors across the UK, India, and Pakistan. Their work has been featured in outlets including Time, the BBC, Reuters, and Elle.

Through colorfully animated retellings of individual histories, the project reveals the resilience of those who were uprooted and dispersed as a result of the events of 1947. These stories emphasize the power of letters, food, and other shared experiences to foster reunion and healing in the wake of the largest migration in recorded history. Lost Migrations, their three-part animated series, explores the legacies of Partition through the personal narratives of women, the stateless, and the broader experience of diaspora communities around the world.

About the Speakers

Sparsh Ahuja is an award-winning filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer specializing in animation and documentary, with work featured in The New Yorker, Time, BBC, and The Economist. His short Birdsong premiered at SXSW 2023; was shortlisted for the Grierson, IDA, and BIFA Awards; and was acquired by The Guardian. His VR film Child of Empire premiered at Sundance 2022 and won the inaugural XR History Award. His work has toured institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and BFI Southbank, and in 2024, his reporting on Indigenous land rights was a finalist for the LA Press Club Award.

Sam Dalrymple is a historian and award-winning filmmaker. A Scot raised in Delhi, he graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar. In 2018, he cofounded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India. His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and his animated series Lost Migrations sold out at the BFI the same year. His work has been published in The New York Times and The Spectator and has been featured in Time, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He is a columnist for Architectural Digest and in 2025, Travel + Leisure named him "Champion of the Travel Narrative." Shattered Lands, his first book, will be published in June 2025.


Image Courtesy of Sparsh Ahuja

Cost

Free. Register in advance (recommended)

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Accessibility & Accommodations

Assisted listening devices, Wheelchair accessible

Topics

After Five, Films, Lectures & Discussions