Retold World is a non-profit organisation that creates impactful documentary films addressing some of the most urgent issues of our time — from media freedom and civic space to human rights and the environment. With over two decades of combined experience in filmmaking, conflict, and social justice, we specialise in compelling, research-driven storytelling designed to spark public dialogue and regional impact.
Our team brings extensive expertise and a collaborative ethos to each project, working with a global network of creative partners, media platforms, and funders. Our films have been recognised with prestigious awards and showcased internationally.
Retold World was founded by Kannan Arunasalam, a British–Sri Lankan filmmaker, lecturer and artist whose work spans documentary film, installation, and sound. His practice explores themes of memory, resistance, and the legacies of conflict and colonialism — often through long-term engagement and community collaboration. His work has appeared on Al Jazeera English, BBC, and The New Yorker.
Kannan’s most recent film, Sri Lanka’s Rebel Wife (2022), was shortlisted for Best Documentary at the DIG Investigative Film Awards. The Tent (2019) was presented in his solo exhibition at Yorkshire Contemporary (formerly The Tetley, Leeds). He recently completed two new feature documentaries: Possible Landscapes, exploring environmental perception in Trinidad & Tobago, and Republic of Amnesia, which documents Sri Lanka’s unprecedented protest movement.
After graduating with a degree in psychology from the University of Cambridge and law at the College of Law, London, Kannan Arunasalam began his career as a defamation and human rights lawyer. At a leading media law firm in London, he worked on high-profile libel, privacy, and copyright cases, providing pre-publication advice to journalists, publishers, and broadcasters. Alongside partners such as David Hooper—one of the UK’s most respected libel lawyers—he defended the right to freedom of expression in an era that laid the groundwork for what are now known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), used by powerful interests to silence media scrutiny.
But Kannan wanted to move beyond working vicariously on media human rights cases—he wanted to tell stories himself.
Kannan transitioned into journalism, beginning with Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s human rights programme before being selected to train with Al Jazeera English’s flagship documentary strand, Witness, under its current Executive Director of Documentaries, Fiona Lawson-Baker. From there, he steadily established himself as a filmmaker, working with major international broadcasters and platforms including The Guardian, The New Yorker, TechCrunch, and AOL Originals.
In 2010, Kannan returned to academia to complete a master’s degree in international human rights law at the University of Oxford, where his dissertation explored the role of new media in conflict. Shortly after, he was invited by Cornell University’s Department of Asian Studies to serve as a visiting professor, teaching a course on media representations of the Sri Lankan conflict.
From 2013 to 2019, Kannan served as a director at Stateless Media, a US-based start-up. Alongside award-winning journalist Peter Savodnik, and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ed Perkins, he helped reshape the media landscape with the “shortreal”—a 10-minute film format that combined the depth of print journalism with the cinematic power of documentary filmmaking. Their innovative approach was widely praised, with American Journalism Review calling it ‘Pushing the Boundaries of Storytelling Through the Shortreal’ and TechCrunch highlighting how Stateless Media’s work revolutionized online documentaries. Their clients included diverse platforms like AJ+, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Upworthy, Snapchat, Engadget, TechCrunch, AOL Originals, and Condé Nast.
