While teaching at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, Amit Dutta guided several student projects as part of the curriculum. Afterwards, younger filmmakers began approaching him for informal guidance on ideas or films in development. If a project interests him and time permits, he still works with them remotely. He usually takes up one or two such projects every couple of years.

Each collaboration grows from a shared interest in the subject and often involves researching it together. It may begin while the project is being conceived and written or later, when the filmed material is ready for the edit. He is particularly interested in work that calls for sustained research.

No money is involved in these collaborations. The hope is that a conversation begun around one project will continue beyond it, allowing artists and filmmakers interested in similar subjects to exchange ideas and support one another when possible. This has already happened in several cases. The friendships that have grown from these projects and the support he has received from the filmmakers over the years have been the greatest reward and the reason the practice has continued.

His editorial collaborations have included a feature-length documentary on childhood and learning in a rural village school. He edited a fiction feature shot in Himachal Pradesh and centred on local communities. He also edited and mentored a documentary on the vernacular architecture of the Kangra Valley. Other mentorships have involved a short film on childhood learning during the pandemic and the development of a feature-length script about Sarat Chandra Das, the nineteenth-century scholar and Tibetologist. One project examines Rajasthan’s indigenous knowledge systems through the lives and work of little-known vernacular intellectuals. Another brings together a book-length manual and a film on traditional mud-house construction in Kangra, drawing upon oral histories and building practices. A separate project concerns Tansen. His guidance also extends to a series of manuals documenting craft knowledge. One concerns rare musical instruments and the knowledge required to make them, now at risk of disappearing. He also advises filmmakers working with archival material or animation in documentary and experimental forms.

Matra Publications coordinates enquiries. Filmmakers may send a brief project note and a link to previous work through the Contact page. Each enquiry is considered according to the nature of the project and the time available.