Pratibha Parmar
Pratibha Parmar is a filmmaker whose ground breaking films centre marginal stories in bold creative ways. She has dedicated her career to illuminate stories erased from dominant cinematic narratives. Her oeuvre spans experimental shorts, activist documentaries and feature-length works. Her cinematic language operates as an act of visual justice, a queer diasporic strategy for generating networks of solidarity, art, and pleasure.
One of her early videos, Sari Red, lives in the permanent collection at MOMA in NYC and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. A globally recognised filmmaker and human rights activist Pratibha’s films, Warrior Marks (1993) and Khush (1991) helped gain much needed rights for women and girls and contributed to the visibility of marginalized LGBT communities. Awards include the ICON Award for Outstanding Contribution to Indian and World Cinema, the Frameline Award for a significant and outstanding contribution to lesbian and gay media and the 2022 Mind the Gap award for helping to close the gender gap in film (other recipients include Viola Davies, Andrea Riseborough & Emerald Fennell).
In 2024/2025 Pratibha’s two films, Sari Red and Reframing AIDS were included in the ground breaking, Women In Revolt exhibition at Tate Britain, currently touring the U.K. In 2025, artist Lubaina Himid invited Pratibha Parmar to present a season of her films at ICA London in conjunction with Connecting Thin Black Lines 1885-2025. This film season celebrated her groundbreaking films which have shaped the politics of feminist, queer, and diasporic visual cultures for over four decades. In January 2026, The Otolith Collective curated ‘The video poetics of Pratibha Parmar’ at IBRAAZ, London. Pratibha is author, co-author and editor of several books and essays, has been a Visiting Artist at Stanford University and taught film in her capacity as an Associate Professor in the Film Program at California College of the Arts, San Francisco. Pratibha is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.
Artist's films
