Ambika Subra
Screenwriter, Founder, Set Designer, Art Director, Graphic Artist, Dancer, Storyteller
Based in Mexico City and New York, Ambika has worked across various fields – from film/television to contemporary art, metaphysics, design, and complex systems. Most of her research focuses on cross-industry interconnectedness and horizontal, decentralized networks. She studied film, architecture, and philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis and Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. A classically trained Bharatanatyam dancer, she studied under masters Sir Adyar K. Lakshman, Smt. Padmini Chari, and V.P. and Shanta Dhananjayan.
As a set designer, art director, and graphic artist, her work can be seen in Aaron Sorkin’s “Trial of the Chicago 7”, AppleTV’s “WeCrashed,” and many more. She was also one of the 5 artists behind the collective Badlands Unlimited, founded by MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Paul Chan. After developing a proposal for a technological-creative hub between Hudson Yards (NY) and the disruption-thinktank RethinkX, Ambika extended a similar concept of multidisciplinary collaboration into the film industry. She has since co-founded Tocaya Films alongside director Monica G. Carter in Mexico City. A film collective studio, Tocaya expands film beyond the screen into the real, and into community. By connecting the genre of film to a multi-disciplinary system, Tocaya’s stories operate in the grey-area that exists between poles, between genres, away from categorical echo-chambers. We embrace the discomfort of the unknown, understanding that its a point of universality where cultures intertwine and evolve as an organism.
Ambika is also a co-founder of Beitna, the first Palestinian cultural center of Mexico City.