Rafeeq Ellias is a multiple award-winning photographer and filmmaker, whose films explore and engage with India’s smallest minority communities. Sensitively portraying the richly textured lives of communities living on the margins, the films present an India where multiple identities meet and flourish.

The Ninety First Symphony: The Musical Journey of Homi Dastoor

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[20:01 min; 2016; English]
Direction & Cinematography: Rafeeq Ellias

Recipient of the Jury Award, 5th Kolkata Shorts International Film Festival 2016

The Ninety First Symphony introduces audiences to Homi Dastoor, a man who loved Western classical music with a passion and spent a lifetime exploring its treasures and sharing it with the world. At the age of 90 in 2014, Dastoor published a remarkable book, richly illustrated with rare archival images, based on his enduring love affair with music. The foreword to the book was written by maestro Zubin Mehta who was one among the legions who had known and loved him. Dastoor who passed on two years ago remains an important inspiration for both his love and knowledge of Western music and his incredible spirit and attitude towards life.

What Man Joe: Portrait of a Funeral Musician

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[36:29 min; 2018; English and with subtitles]
Direction & Cinematography: Rafeeq Ellias

Recipient of the Jury Award, National Documentary ShortFilm Festival, Thrissur 2019 

Joe Vessaoaker is a man who lives and breathes the trumpet every minute of his waking life. A life-long teacher and musician, he represents a dying tradition of funeral music in the East Indian community of Christians in Bombay. Joe, who lives in the vibrant, multi-talented 'musical' neighbourhood, is as extraordinary as he is simple and ordinary, coming from a traditional fishing family whose every member played a musical instrument with panache.