Sonali Fernando

Sonali Fernando is a writer and award-winning filmmaker with fifteen years' experience of directing films for the BBC, Channel 4 and independent release. Her credits include the acclaimed 75-minute documentary Nine Days That Shook London, a startling portrait of the capital in the long week that included Live8, London's Olympics bid win and the London Bombings; India Calling, the first film to reveal the surreal world of call agents in India working on British time for UK companies, which was nominated for an EMMA Award and the BBC's Mega Mela Awards; Mary Seacole - The Real Angel of the Crimea, a film about the trailblazing Victorian doctress from Jamaica; The Body of a Poet, which won the Imagginaria Film Festival's Audience Award for Best Documentary in Bologna, the Outfest Film Festival's Award for Outstanding Short Fiction in Los Angeles, and a Jury Runner-Up Award at the Prized Pieces Festival, Berkeley; and Great Excavations, the flagship six-part series about archaeology's 250-year transition from glorified plunder to reputable science, which was filmed in fourteen countries and shown internationally as Lost Worlds.

Sonali has written extensively for a variety of publications on subjects ranging from contemporary photography to Victorian anthropology. She was born in London and studied at St Paul's Girls' School and Oxford University. She loves gekkos, Mexico, accordions, limes, qawwali, Monteverdi, playing tennis, sitting still, Lorrie Moore, conversation, North Sea light, the Kop, eggs Benedict, the News Quiz, the trade justice movement and Angela Bruce.

Sonali has directed several short films about some of the contributors to the Soulmates book, which are available at guardian.co.uk. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/apr/02/soulmates-dating

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/jun/14/soulmates-stories

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/feb/14/guardian-soulmates-valentines-day