I'm inspired by dramatic tales of the first days. In reimagining these pasts, I ask questions about identity and belonging, and try to tap into the fresh feelings of new settlers today.
My first film, Beauty Queen (2006), was about the race riots in Birmingham in 2005. A Miracle in West Brom followed — a deeply personal 25-minute film about my Sikh immigrant father's journey from the Punjab to the Black Country. Since then, my personal work has remained focused on diaspora subcultures in the industrial Midlands and has sought ever more ambitious visual modes — from the archival documentary Year Zero: Black Country to the FLAMIN-commissioned Indi and the Heritage Lottery Fund–supported Paths You Walk cantos.
Paths You Walk · 2026
Three Cantos
Three cinematic cantos reimagining South Asian migration to the Black Country in the 1960s. Heritage Lottery Fund commission. Exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall, 6 March – 12 July 2026.
Canto I: Ambush
Artist Film · 2026
Lush, painterly visuals transport the viewer to a world between memory and myth. The first canto reimagines the arrival of South Asian workers in 1960s Walsall.
Canto 2: After the Storms
Artist Film · 2026
Period interiors, vintage props, and intimate domestic scenes that honour the stories of early migrant families settling in the Black Country.
Canto 3: Oh Walsall
Artist Film · 2026
From the hum of textile mills to the quiet of terraced streets — a love letter to the working people who built a new life in the industrial heartland.
FLAMIN / Film London
Indi
Commissioned by FLAMIN (Film London Artists' Moving Image Network), Indi is a poetic meditation on diaspora, memory, and the sensory textures of home. The film was the centrepiece of a solo exhibition at the New Art Exchange (NAE) in Nottingham as part of the Traveller, Your Footprints show.
Seminal Work
Year Zero: Black Country
A feature-length archival film that blends 1960s newsreel footage with personal testimonies to document the psychology and sensations of economic migration to the industrial Black Country. In the 1960s, thousands of male workers from the former colonies arrived in Smethwick, a railway town in the last throes of its industrial might. The film excavates this largely undocumented history through broadcast archives, home super-8 footage, and the spoken memories of the community.
Nominated for both the Grierson Award and the Derek Jarman Award. Acquired by the Arts Council Collection. Featured as part of the "Kaleidoscope" group show at Somerset House.
NFTS Graduation Film
A Miracle in West Brom
A deeply personal 25-minute documentary about Billy's Sikh immigrant father and his journey from the Punjab to the Black Country. The film traces one family's story of displacement, labour, and quiet resilience against the backdrop of West Bromwich's industrial decline — a portrait of faith and endurance in an unfamiliar land.
Made as Billy's graduation film at the National Film and Television School (NFTS). Nominated for the Grierson Award for Best Newcomer. Recipient of the Satyajit Ray Award. Screened at BFI Southbank, the London Indian Film Festival, and the Royal Television Society Award Show.
A Miracle
in West Brom
Documentary · 25 min · 2010
First Film
Beauty Queen
Billy's debut film, Beauty Queen was made in the aftermath of the 2005 race riots in the Lozells area of Birmingham. The film explores the tensions, prejudices, and community fractures that erupted into violence — and the lives caught in the middle. It marked the beginning of a practice rooted in the experiences of diaspora communities in England's industrial heartland.
Screened at FIERCE Festival, Birmingham, and regional venues across the Midlands. Beauty Queen established the themes of identity, belonging, and cultural displacement that have defined Dosanjh's filmmaking practice ever since.
Beauty Queen
Artist Film · 2006
Somerset House
1965
A short film evoking the moment of arrival — the texture of an unfamiliar country seen through the eyes of a new settler. Part of the "Kaleidoscope" group exhibition at Somerset House alongside Year Zero: Black Country.
