SELECTED LIST:

2020–2025

• Stream-Story received the Jury’s Special Mention for the Intangible Cultural Heritage Award at the 47th Cinéma du Réel, supported by the French Ministry of Culture.
• Rhythm of a Flower received the Golden Gateway at the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI).
• The Many Interrupted Dreams of Mr. Hemmady received the Principal Prize of the International Jury at the 70th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany.
• The Hindi novel Kaljayi Kambakht was shortlisted for the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation.
• Gyarah Rupay Ka Fountain Pen, a book of short stories for children, was included in the Tata Trusts’ Parag Honours List 2022.
• Honorary retrospective, Slow Cinema, Museum of Art and Photography (MAP).
• Honorary retrospective, Animating the Archive: Short Films by Amit Dutta, presented as part of Icons: South Asia at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.
• Honorary retrospective, The Films of Amit Dutta, e-flux, Artist Cinemas, New York.
• Honorary retrospective, Surface and Depth: Recent Short Films by Amit Dutta, Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California.
• Special programme, Films by Amit Dutta, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
• Honorary retrospective, Amit Dutta’s Cinematic Museum, Freer and Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC.
• Honorary retrospective, An Auteur’s Palette: A Festival of Amit Dutta’s Films, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA).
• MUBI retrospective, The Inimitable Image: An Amit Dutta Retrospective.
• Special Tribute, Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival, Venice, Italy.
• The New Yorker listed Nainsukh among the best biopics ever made.
• Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Marcel Duchamp, or How Not to Do Philosophy was voted among the best films, for the third time in four years, in the Timeless Treasures section of the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2023.
• Blueprint of a Pleasure Machine was listed by Desistfilm among the “most important films seen” in 2023.
• Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Marcel Duchamp, or How Not to Do Philosophy was again voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2021.
• Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Marcel Duchamp, or How Not to Do Philosophy was voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2020.
• Mother Who Will Weave Now? opened Berlin Critics’ Week.
• Special invitation to the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF), Japan, for a programme showcasing documentary films about cinema and film history.
• Invitation from the Smithsonian Museum to create a soundscape on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Museum of Asian Art.
• Special invitation from the 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale to make a film exploring the relationship between the museum and memory.
• Special invitation to the 16th Convention of the Ordem dos Arquitectos, Portugal, Change Matters: Quality and Sustainability in Constructing (Our) Future, curated by Jonathan Levine of the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
• Special screening of Nainsukh at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of Satyajit Ray: His Contemporaries and Legacy.
• Special invitation to the Copenhagen Architecture Festival and Det Danske Filminstitut for a film programme and talk.
• Invitation from the Rubin Museum to create a film exploring scent and memory for its Scent Library.
• Phool ka Chhand (Rhythm of a Flower) was nominated for the Critics’ Choice Awards 2025.

2015–2019

• Enlighten Award for contribution to philosophy and art history through films.
• Krishna Baldev Vaid Fellowship for outstanding contribution to experimental Hindi literature.
• Tagore Fellowship at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
• CNAP Award from the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, France, for a project on the history of chess.
• Honoured by the Government of Himachal Pradesh for Nainsukh.
• Awarded an India Foundation for the Arts grant to make an animation film based on Steven B. Gerrard’s essay Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Duchamp or How Not to Do Philosophy: Wittgenstein on Mistakes of Surface and Depth.
• Honorary retrospective, National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune.
• Honorary retrospective, Amit Dutta’s Cinematic Museum, Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archives, University of California.
• Honorary retrospective, Modernism by Other Means, Bombay Art Society, Mumbai.
• Honorary retrospective, LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, Lugano, Switzerland.
• Honorary retrospective, Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK).
• Honorary retrospective, Through the Looking Glass, Centre Pompidou, Paris, during the 37th edition of Cinéma du Réel.
• Ka was voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2019.
• Nainsukh was again voted among the best films in the Best Repertory Viewings section of the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2017.
• Pūrṇa/Apūrṇa (Finished/Unfinished) was voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2015.
• Invited to deliver the Mani Kaul Memorial Lecture.
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York, specially invited Chitrashala to Documentary Fortnight 2017.
• Even Red Can Be Sad was selected for the Indian Panorama at the International Film Festival of India.
• Scenes from a Sketchbook was nominated for the Grand Prix at the 25FPS Film Festival, Zagreb.
• Scenes from a Sketchbook was nominated for the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
• Chitrashala was nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

2009–2014

• The Man’s Woman and Other Stories received the Jury’s Special Prize in the Orizzonti section.
• Kramasha received the Cinema Experimenta Award for Best Experimental Film from the Federation of Film Societies of India, Kerala.
• Aadmi Ki Aurat Aur Anya Kahaniya received the Best Student Film Award at the New Jersey Independent South Asian Cinefest.
• The Ferroni Brigade awarded the Golden Donkey to Nainsukh, while recognising Amit Dutta as “the latest of contemporary film’s finest young experimental filmmaker / prayōgavādi.”
• Dogra Ratna Award for contribution to art and culture.
• Hubert Bals Award of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
• Honoured by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) for Nainsukh.
• Honorary retrospective, Lalit Kala Akademi.
• Honorary retrospective, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany.
• The Museum of Imagination was acquired for the permanent collection of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’s Kurzfilmtage Film Archive.
• The Ferroni Brigade named Amit Dutta among the Best New Filmmakers of the Decade.
• Film Comment listed The Seventh Walk among the ten best films of the Rome Film Festival.
• Saatvin Sair (The Seventh Walk) was voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2013.
• Nainsukh was voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2010.
• Aadmi Ki Aurat Aur Anya Kahaniya (Man’s Woman and Other Stories) and Jangarh Film – Ek were voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2009.
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York, invited The Seventh Walk to Documentary Fortnight 2014.
• The Seventh Walk (Saatvin Sair) was the closing film of CinemaXXI at the Rome Film Festival.
• Invited by the Venice Film Festival to participate in 70 Directors for Venice 70, a programme marking the festival’s seventieth anniversary with seventy directors associated with its recent history.
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York, invited Nainsukh to Documentary Fortnight.
• Special screening of Nainsukh at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto International Film Festival.
• Nainsukh was presented as the World Cinema Spotlight film, Painting with Light, at the 54th San Francisco International Film Festival.
• Field-Trip was nominated for the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
• Museum of Imagination was nominated for the Tiger Award for Short Film at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
• Museum of Imagination was nominated for the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
• Museum of Imagination was nominated for the CinemaXXI Award for Short and Medium-Length Film at the Rome Film Festival.
• Nainsukh was nominated for the Audience Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
• Sonchidi was nominated for the Venice Horizons Award at the Venice Film Festival.
• Nainsukh was nominated for the Grand Prix Janine Bazin at the Entrevues Belfort Festival International du Film.
• Nainsukh was nominated for the Venice Horizons Award at the Venice Film Festival.
• Aadmi Ki Aurat Aur Anya Kahaniya was nominated for the International Film Critics Prize (FIPRESCI) at the Viennale.
• Nominated for the Woosuk Award at the Jeonju International Film Festival, South Korea.

2003–2008

• Best Film of the Festival Award, Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF).
• Golden Conch for Best Film in the International Competition, Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF).
• Kramasha received the International Film Critics Award (FIPRESCI) at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany.
• Kramasha received the Gold Mikeldi for Best Film at the Bilbao International Festival, Spain.
• Kramasha received the National Film Award of India, Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus), for Best Audiography.
• Kramasha received the National Film Award of India, Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus), for Best Cinematography.
• Kshya Tra Ghya received the National Film Award of India, Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus), for Best Audiography.
• Kshya Tra Ghya received the National Film Award of India, Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus), Special Jury Award for Direction.
• National winner for Cinematography, Kodak Film School Competition, for Kramasha.
• Asia-Pacific runner-up for Cinematography, Kodak Film School Competition, for Kramasha.
• India Foundation for the Arts grant, Extending Arts Practice.
• Master Class scholarship; invited as a cinematography scholar for Kramasha.
• Kramasha was acquired for the permanent collection of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’s Kurzfilmtage Film Archive.
• Kramasha was included in Jonathan Rosenbaum’s list of 1,000 best films of all time.
• Kramasha was voted among the best films in the Senses of Cinema World Poll 2007.
• The student diploma film was screened at Experimenta and Tate Modern and featured, with an extended conversation, in the book Cinema of Prayoga: Indian Experimental Film and Video 1913–2006.
• The student diploma film Kshya Tra Ghya was selected for Forum Expanded at the Berlin Film Festival, representing experimental cinema from India.
• Invitation from the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Zoo Art Fair and no.w.here to exhibit the film concept.
• Kramasha was nominated for the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
• Selected to represent the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at the All-Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK), Russia, and the Spirit of Fire festival in Khanty-Mansiysk, honouring the seventieth birthday of Andrei Tarkovsky. During the visit, he made a short film on VGIK students making their student films.

OTHER:

He is also a keen chess enthusiast, with a special interest in the history of Chess in India between. As an ardent chess player in his student days, he was part of the team which won the Inter-College State Chess Championship in 1995-96. These days, he ranks among the top Correspondence Chess players in the country. In 2017, he won silver in the All India Correspondence Chess Championship (2017) and subsequently his chess-biography was published in the AICCF Bulletin. His national peak rating is 2032 and International rating is 2397 as calculated by the new Glicko-2 rating system. He likes to collect rare chess books.