THE GHETTO GIRL
Documentary Short I 28 mins I India US, 2012
Director I Producer I Editor I Second Camera I Sound Designer: Ambarien Alqadar
A personal essay film blending recreated home movies with documentary footage, unfolding through the perspective of a fictional girl walking the streets of her Delhi “ghetto” neighborhood. As she retraces the spaces of her childhood, the film maps memory, belonging, erasure, and the political history of a map-less place.
Executive Producer: Public Service Broadcasting Trust, India
Additional Support: Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, US
The Philadelphia Film & Video Association, US
Awards
2014 Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, Best Graduate Film Award, Washington DC, USA
2012 Indian Documentary Producers Association Award for Excellence, Mumbai, India
2012 Special Jury Award, Federation of Film Societies of India-SIGNS, Kerala, India
Museum Exhibitions/ Installations
2020 Loss and Transience, Hong Gah Museum, Taiwan
2016 William Harris Gallery, New York
2014 Elephants in the Dark, Refractions on Muslim Identity, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology
2012 International Visual Sociology Association, New York
2012 Huret and Specter Gallery, Boston
Film Festival Screenings/Official Selections
2020 I View World Human Rights Film Festival
2020 New York City South Asian Film Festival
2014 Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, Washington DC, USA
2013 International Women’s Film Festival of Seoul, South Korea
2013 Tempo Dokumentär Festival, Stockholm
2012 International Association of Women in Radio & Television Film Festival
2011 The Open Frame Film Festival, Public Service Broadcasting Trust, India
Television Broadcast
India National Television Broadcast 2012
NDTV India 2012
Community Engagement/Distribution
2016 Young India Fellowship Program, Ashoka University, India
2014 Deptt. of Visual Anthropology, Towson University, Washington DC
2012 International Conference on Islam, Gender and Youth in South and South-East Asia, Berlin
2014 Kriti Film Club, New Delhi, India
2013 Alliance Française, Mumbai, India
Distributed By: The Public Service Broadcasting Trust, India
“An intimate and personal exploration of the intersectional experience of Muslim women in India"
Urvashi Butalia, feminist historian, publisher, and author of The Other Side of Silence, a landmark oral history of the 1947 Partition of India
“A ‘transgression’ of borders by even observing, and certainly of using the camera. Your transgression of being a woman and pressing your point. And the utter exclusion, the wall that is erected in response- the categorical exclusion of your body and mind, and the exclusion of your gaze. A powerful, dense, incisive piece.” Sarah Drury, NYC-based artist and curator, Borders in a Single Shot: After Farocki, Berlin
Creative Team:
Editing Consultant: Sikay Tang
Color: David Kessler
Cinematographer: Shakeb Ahmed
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2026 @Ambarien Alqadar