Trained in television journalism, Yashodara Udupa began her career as a freelance researcher-producer for the current affairs programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, honing her ability to swiftly contextualise diverse stories for a global audience in a short span of time. She subsequently edited the feature-length documentary Inshallah Kashmir, which earned the National Award for Best Investigative Film (2013) in India. She has also directed and edited a documentary called Conversations at the Kumbh Mela, Allahabad (2015).
Transitioning to the Media Lab at IIHS, Yashodara applied her skills as a storyteller and video producer across projects, spanning topics from disaster recovery to mental wellbeing. She has worked across narrative forms, contributing to a graphic anthology, producing Massive Open Online Courses, promos, exhibitions and installations. Being on the core team of the annual Urban Lens Film Festival for the last decade has provided her with an avenue to understand how diverse audiences consume and engage with films.
Teaching has been a constant in her journey—she taught television production at Jamia Millia Islamia earlier in her career and contributed as faculty in a series of filmmaking workshops for minority communities with limited access to digital skills more recently. She has also taught in the Urban Fellows Programme at IIHS.
2021, Media and Film – Media Lab, Faculty member, Media and mass communication, Urban Fellows Programme (UFP)
Writing for Digital Media, 2021, Writing and Editing
