Filmmaker and Artist
About
Kannan Arunasalam is a British–Sri Lankan artist and 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 mass protest 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 and installation works that examine the entangled legacies of war, empire, and displacement.
Kannan’s path to filmmaking began in the world of human rights. After graduating from Cambridge, he worked as a defamation and media lawyer in London, advising journalists and defending freedom of expression during an era that would later be defined by SLAPP lawsuits and rising press intimidation. But Kannan wanted to move beyond working vicariously on media and human rights cases—he wanted to tell stories himself. He began in international radio and was selected for Al Jazeera English’s flagship documentary strand Witness, where he trained under Executive Producer Fiona Lawson-Baker. His early documentaries aired on The Guardian, The New Yorker, TechCrunch and BBC Radio 4.
Kannan shifted into journalism, beginning with Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s human rights programme before being selected to train with Al Jazeera English’s flagship documentary strand, Witness, under its current Executive Director of Documentaries, Fiona Lawson-Baker. 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.
Today, Kannan’s practice is based in Glasgow, where he is developing new film and installation projects that explore the intersection of postwar trauma, postcolonial inheritance, and diasporic memory.
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.