About Yousuf Saeed

Yousuf is an independent filmmaker and researcher based in New Delhi, India. After finishing his masters in Mass Communication at Jamia Millia’s AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, he started his career in educational television (with the Times of India) in 1990, co-directing the science series Turning Point for Doordarshan, which was hosted by actors such as Naseeruddin Shah and Girish Karnad. Yousuf moved on to produce documentaries on a variety of subjects, some of his prominent films being Inside Ladakh, Basant, A Life in Science-Yashpal, and the Train to Heaven which have been shown at numerous film festivals, academic venues and on TV channels. Besides films and television, Yousuf also worked for Encyclopedia Britannica (India) as the Arts Editor. He has been a Sarai Fellow (in 2004), the Asia Fellow (in 2005-06) and the Margaret Beveridge Senior Research Fellow (at J.B.Media Resource Centre, Jamia Millia, New Delhi, in 2009).

Yousuf’s most recent work is a feature length documentary film Khayal Darpan about the state of classical music in Pakistan. Khayal Darpan has been shown at numerous international film festivals such as in Hong Kong, France, United States, Nepal, Pakistan and others. Yousuf’s interest in the popular devotional art of Indian Muslims and his extensive collection of such art work brings him to the Tasveer Ghar, a digital archive of India’s popular visual art. Yousuf recently wrote and published his new illustrated book Muslim Devotional Art in India (Routledge, 2012) which explores the history of Islamic poster art in India. Yousuf regularly makes lecturing tours in India and abroad, and has recently spoken or shown his films at universities such as JNU and Delhi in India and Harvard, Boston, Columbia, and New York among others. Through much of his recent work, Yousuf tries to document and present the pluralistic and shared cultural traditions, music and arts in India. He continues to work on several new documentary films as well as writing projects.
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