About Ishani K. Dutta

Ishani K. Dut­ta has been mak­ing films for almost two decades. Before her work as a film­mak­er, she was a media researcher with the Indi­an Insti­tute of Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. She joined IIMC after com­plet­ing her Post Grad­u­a­tion in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture. Ishani’s inspi­ra­tion for mak­ing “Womb on Rent” was to uncov­er the murky under­bel­ly of the sur­ro­ga­cy indus­try in India. She sees doc­u­men­taries as a key medi­um for com­mu­ni­cat­ing and inspir­ing social, cul­tur­al, and envi­ron­men­tal change. She finds it a great medi­um to spur per­cep­tion change, increase aware­ness of India’s rich cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal her­itage, and inspire a new gen­er­a­tion by empow­er­ing them with knowl­edge about India and its rela­tion with the world.

Ishani found­ed Car­rot Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in ear­ly 2000 and, today, Car­rot is proud to be asso­ci­at­ed with lead­ing cor­po­rate hous­es, NGOs, and the gov­ern­ment sector.

Ishani’s recent projects include “Black Pep­per White Pep­per – Sto­ries from the Trench­es,” for the Min­istry of Exter­nal Affairs, Govt. of India, Series Direc­tor on Ado­les­cent Heroes from all over India for UNICEF & DOORDARSHAN, Series Direc­tor on Nat­ur­al Resource Man­age­ment for NABARD & GIZ, India.

She is also an inte­gral part of the Con­cept Research Direc­tion of the fol­low­ing Doc­u­men­taries: “Inter­rupt­ed – Child Rape in India” – Research & Pro­duc­tion Stage, “Trans For­ma­tion – Sto­ry of Trans woman Amit­va Sarkar,” and “Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ter­ror – Sto­ry of Aamir Khan.”

She plans to make a sequel of “Womb on Rent” with the same character.

Ishani Dut­ta Accep­tance Speech 2016 Wom­en’s Voic­es Now Online Film Fes­ti­val from Wom­en’s Voic­es Now on Vimeo.