Film
BKM FUNDED
Hundfreund
Sailesh is the creator and producer of Hundfreund a German language short film that was awarded funding from Staatsministerin für Kultur und Medien (BKM) of Germany. Hundefreund explores the nuances of race in Germany through the lens of an intimate evening between two queer lovers. In collaboration with Director, Maissa Lihedheb, and Screenwriter/Actor Lamin Leroy Gibba, Hundefreud will had it’s World Premier at the British Film Institute LGBTQI Flare Film Festival. It is currently nominated for the Deutsch KurzFilmPreise, the highest honored awarded in German cinema.
2020 Zebra Poetry Film Festival
DIG
“DIG” premiered at the 2020 Zebra Poetry Film Festival. Commissioned by Haus fur Poesie Berlin “DIG” explores the complex web of ancestral memory as it weaves into the lives we live today. With the use of archival photos the film questions how memories and imagination can become one through the process of unearthing familial narratives.
2021 Ancestral Body Noise Residency
“The Body Was Never Meant To Be An Archive”
Part of the Ancestral Body Noise Residency at Oyoun “The Body Was Never Meant To Be An Archive” was the culmination of a three year archival research project into family ancestor Dr. Vema Mukunda who began a school for sound healing in Germany over three decades ago. Using lost music written by Dr. Vemu Mukunda, interviews from former students, and ritual ancestral practices this poetry film explores the nature and relationship ancestors play in conjuring our current and future selves.