Munmun Dhalaria

Roles: Director

Munmun Dhalaria is an independent documentary filmmaker interested in wildlife conservation, gender, human rights and livelihoods. Her deep fascination with wildlife biology started at a young age during her time in the US as a foreign exchange student, where she studied the behaviour of eastern coyotes in urban Massachusetts. Upon returning to India, she realized the complexity of human-wildlife interactions in a country with over a billion people fighting for daily sustenance that also must coexist with megafauna.

After completing her masters in Media and Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai), she has combined her passion for wildlife and human-interest stories by focusing on the issues of people living close to wild spaces. The themes of her films range from wildlife conservation projects in the Himalayas to the state of maternal health in the tribal communities of Southern India.

Dhalaria is attracted to stories that do not get enough attention, in and outside of mainstream media. She continues making short documentaries for various multidisciplinary NGO’s that work for wildlife conservation and women’s rights. She has recently been awarded a National Geographic Young Explorer grant to further her wildlife filmmaking projects in the western Himalayas.