Dylan Mohan Gray

Dylan Mohan Gray
Alma mater	Dartmouth College, Central European University
Occupation	Director, producer, screenwriter

Dylan Mohan Gray is an award-winning Indian filmmaker, best known for the documentary feature film Fire in the Blood,^[1] which in November 2013 set a new all-time record for the longest theatrical run by any non-fiction feature film in Indian cinema history (five weeks).^[2][3]

Dylan Mohan Gray, Agra, 2005

Born on remote Prince Edward Island off Canada's Atlantic coast, where his biologist father served as a national park warden, Gray grew up with a keen interest in theatre, first as a child actor, then later moving into writing and directing plays, followed soon thereafter by videos (often using equipment borrowed from school sports programs). He was originally trained as a contemporary historian and expected to continue in academia, but began working in the film industry after a chance meeting in Budapest with a former acting colleague who was there working as an assistant director with David Cronenberg. He would go on to serve in various key capacities (often credited as "D. Dylan Gray") on international feature films in over two dozen countries worldwide, working in close collaboration with numerous acclaimed directors including Fatih Akin, Peter Greenaway, Paul Greengrass, Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair.^[4]

Gray completed undergraduate studies in History and Film at Dartmouth College (USA), as well as at the University of Vienna and the Budapest University of Economics. He holds graduate degrees in History from the Central European University and the University of the State of New York, with research focussed on historiography and geographic dimensions of identity.^[5]

He was also a resident in Film at Canada’s renowned Banff Centre for the Arts, and has a special interest in political stories with significant international and historical components.

Gray's script "The Last Day of Winter" (working title, co-written with Vikramaditya Motwane), was incubated at the 2014 Sundance Institute | Mumbai Mantra Screenwriting Lab.^[6][7][8][9]

In May 2016, Gray was selected from over 13,000 graduates of the Central European University (CEU) as one of 25 recipients of the inaugural Alumni Impact Awards for Outstanding Career Achievement, in commemoration of the silver anniversary of the university, which offers only postgraduate degrees and is one of the world's most international institutions of higher education.

He is currently (2016) in post-production on an international film about innovative human rights and health activists in five countries (Guinea, Hungary, India, South Africa and Spain), produced in association with the New York-based Open Society Foundations (OSF).

Gray founded the production company Sparkwater India in 2005. He lives and works in Mumbai (Bombay).^[10]

Awards and nominations

WINNER—Central European University Alumni Impact Award, Budapest, May 2016

WINNER—Gold Award for Excellence in Nonfiction (Direction)—Silver Award for Excellence in Nonfiction (Script)—Jury Award for Best Film: Documentary—11th Indian Documentary Producers Association (IDPA) Awards, Mumbai, March 2015

WINNER—Best Feature Documentary—Montréal International Black Film Festival, September 2014

WINNER—Grand Jury Award (main prize) — The White Sands International Film Festival, New Mexico, September 2014

WINNER—Best Documentary—International Film Festival of Kashmir, Srinigar, August 2014

WINNER—Audience Award—Best Documentary—16th Fairy Tales International Queer Film Festival, Calgary, June 2014

WINNER—Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari Award for Best Debut Film for a Director, Mumbai International Film Festival, February 2014^[11]

WINNER—2013 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Prize for Political Film, Filmfest Hamburg, October 2013^[12][13]

WINNER—DOXA Feature Documentary Award (main prize) -- 2013 DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver, May 2013^[14][15]

WINNER—Justice Matters Award—27th Washington DC International Film Festival, April 2013^[16]

Grand Jury Prize, World Documentary (Nominated) -- Sundance Film Festival, January 2013^[17]

Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) Team Award, Feature Film (Nominated), 2007

Media

Gray has been featured or profiled on outlets including the BBC (radio and television), BBC World Service (radio and television), CNN-IBN, Democracy Now!, Frontline, Indiewire, Filmmaker Magazine, Movieline, MSNBC, The Dallas Morning News, The Asian Age, The Guardian, The Hindu, India Today, Mumbai Mirror, Indian Express, The Times of India, OPEN (magazine), RTÉ, POZ (magazine), Time Out, The Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal.

References