Tushar Madhav (1985, India) is an independent filmmaker and artistic researcher. He writes, directs and edits documentary films and experiments with multiform media publications to create diverse modes of storytelling.

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His documentary work engages with oral and anthropological histories as well as artistic practices of communities under political, social, or existential conflict in India and the region. 

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He was awarded with the 64th National Film Award of India in 2016 for his first film A Ballad of Maladies (India, 85 min) that went on to win Best Film at IDSFFK and Film South Asia. The film explores the contemporary military occupation of Indian-administered Kashmir through the lens of the region's poets, musicians, and artists.

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Besides film practice, Tushar also works with performance and documentary theatre rendering contemporary queer histories by explorations of desire through an homo-erotic gaze. In 2021, he co-wrote and performed The Lonely Hearts Club (Goethe Institut Mumbai) - a collaborative online theatre show that explores erotica and desire within the context of the social isolation of the pandemic. 

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He is a PhDarts scholar at University of Leiden and Royal Academy of Art, Den Haag where he is developing an expanded-cinema project probing the artistic legacy and suicide of Indian artist Jangarh Singh Shyam.

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As an Artistic Researcher at the Netherlands Film Academy, Tushar is invested in weaving the personal with the political, the intimate with the collective.

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Besides film festivals, Tushar's works have also been screened at international universities and art galleries such as Harvard University, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, University of Toronto, Hundred Years Gallery London, and Maysles Documentary Centre New York. 

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Tushar is presently based between Amsterdam and Mumbai.

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