Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Senior Researcher
Field of Specialization:	Film studies
Name:	Mr. Sean Flynn
Official Address and Designation:	Filmmaker At-Large Somerville, Massachusetts
Indian Host Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay Mumbai, Maharashtra
Duration of Grant & Start Date :	4 months January 2012

Brief Bio:

Sean Flynn is a documentary producer, director and cinematographer based on Boston. His primary mission is to use film and interactive media to bring greater context, transparency and humanity to an increasingly complex world. After studying film and political science at the University of Southern California and the University of Otago in New Zealand, he joined Boston-based production company Principle Pictures in 2003. Through grant-writing and pitching forums, he helped the company raise nearly $600,000 from some of the country's most prestigious documentary funders, including ITVS, NEH, Cinereach, Fledgling Fund and Tribeca Film Institute. As a producer and cinematographer, he has shot in 15 countries, including conflict zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma and the West Bank. Sean was an Associate Producer and Co-Director of Photography in Afghanistan on the award-winning film "Beyond belief", which premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and aired on the Sundance Channel. Most recently, he directed and co-edited the short documentary "Dividing Lines", a film about the lives of Israeli and Palestinian journalists. He is also a producer and cinematographer on the ITVS features THE LIST. In 2008, Sean was a filmmaker resident at the Content + Intent Documentary Institute at Mass MoCA, where he focused on harnessing the power of documentary film as a tool for social change. As Fulbright-Nehru scholar Sean Flynn will research on a film based on urbanization in India. His documentary film will examine the daily life in Mumbai's Dharavi slum, where controversial $ 3 billion redevelopment plan is poised to dramatically transform the lives of nearly one million residents, many of whom have lived in this square–mile "squatter city" for decades. Shot in cinema verite style, the film will explore the ways in which this island community in the middle of an island city can be seen as a metaphor for our shrinking planet-with its diversity, scarcity of resources and increasing interdependence.