Filmmaker and Artist
About
Kannan Arunasalam is a British–Sri Lankan filmmaker whose practice spans documentary film, installation, and sound. His work explores memory, resistance, and the afterlives of conflict and colonialism, often rooted in long-term community collaborations. Across media, Arunasalam’s projects centre voices that have been marginalised, silenced, or erased. His most recent film, Sri Lanka’s Rebel Wife (2022), was shortlisted for Best Documentary at the DIG Investigative Film Awards. The Tent (2019), a two-channel film installation, was exhibited as a solo show at Yorkshire Contemporary (formerly The Tetley). He has recently completed two new feature documentaries: Republic of Amnesia, which follows Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya movement, and Possible Landscapes, which explores environmental loss and colonial memory in the Caribbean.
Now based in Glasgow, Kannan’s practice continues to evolve through new film, documentary and installation works. He is also a director at Retold World.
Kannan’s path to filmmaking began in the world of human rights. After graduating from the University of Cambridge having studied experimental psychology and the history and philosophy of science, he practised as a defamation and media lawyer in London (1998–2003), advising journalists and newsrooms on pre-publication and libel risk—work that placed him on the front line of press-freedom battles as SLAPP suits and intimidation escalated. Yet Kannan soon realised he wanted to tell them himself.
Kannan moved into journalism, almost accidentally, beginning with Sri Lanka correspondent for Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s human rights programme before being selected to train with the flagship Witness documentary strand, under its current Executive Director of Documentaries, Fiona Lawson-Baker and Flora Gregory. From there, he steadily established himself as a filmmaker, working with major international broadcasters and platforms including The Guardian, The New Yorker, TechCrunch, and AOL Originals.
In 2010, Kannan returned to academia to complete a master’s degree in international human rights law at the University of Oxford, where his dissertation explored the role of new media in conflict. Shortly after, he was invited by Cornell University’s Department of Asian Studies to serve as a visiting professor, teaching a course on media representations of the Sri Lankan conflict.
From 2013 to 2019, Kannan served as a director at Stateless Media, where he helped pioneer the “shortreal”—a 10-minute film format blending print journalism with documentary filmmaking. His work during this time helped reshape the digital documentary landscape, with American Journalism Review calling it ‘Pushing the Boundaries of Storytelling Through the Shortreal’ and TechCrunch highlighting how Stateless Media’s work revolutionized online documentaries. Their clients included diverse platforms like AJ+, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Upworthy, Snapchat, Engadget, TechCrunch, AOL Originals, and Condé Nast.
Kannan Arunasalam is an award winning British–Sri Lankan documentary filmmaker. Kannan’s films have screened at international film festivals and art museums, most recently his British solo exhibition at The Tetley, United Kingdom (2019). His work has appeared in Guardian Films, The New Yorker, AOL Originals, and broadcast on BBC and Al Jazeera English.
Kannan read psychology at the University of Cambridge and holds a masters in international human rights law from the University of Oxford focusing on new media and conflict. He was a visiting professor teaching ‘media representations of the Sri Lankan conflict’ at Cornell University’s Department of Asian Studies, and continues to engage students in filmmaking on location with Cornell University’s Architecture Department. Kannan is available to work internationally in these different roles.
