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ABOUT / INFORMATION

Director, Writer, Builder of Worlds

BIOGRAPHY
Souvid JIJO Datta as a young child, wearing a turquoise hair bow and a patterned outfit.

My parents called me JIJO as a child. I was born early on Christmas Day in Mumbai, with nurses chanting carols while my mum was in labour. Shortly after, a friend gently suggested to my slightly delirious mum and dad that Jesus - their first idea for a nickname - might make life a little complicated. So JIJO stuck.

I became the kid who’d look up at the sky and daydream about getting friends together to make things. To talk, play and celebrate life. That never really left me.

I still wear the name to keep that kid close, and to try to do him proud.

Souvid “JIJO” Datta (he/they) is a director, writer and creative technologist working across fiction, documentary and commissioned films. Alongside his independent practice through Just Be Nice Studios, he works as an in-house Creative Director in technology and venture capital.

Raised between India and the UK, he looks for the human question inside a larger story: what we long for, what we stand to lose, and what we might become. His work explores culture, power and change through the lives of people.

His filmmaking and visual storytelling have taken him to over 60 countries. Clients and collaborators have included Google, Microsoft, National Geographic, The New York Times, Universal Music Group, BBC Studios, TIME and The Guardian.

His drama Moonlight Dreams premiered in the UK at Raindance in 2020 and launched online on Nowness and Omeleto. In 2020, his comedy-drama series F*ckbois, exploring masculinity and mental health, was optioned by Hooked.

His documentary work previewed at Sundance London in 2020 and has received BFI YACF and Creative England support. Through Just Be Nice Studios, he also produced Trust Me, an experimental documentary short about mental health supported by the BFI Doc Society.

His photography spans editorial, personal and documentary work, with exhibitions at venues including London’s Saatchi Gallery, the Houses of Parliament and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

He also works as an accomplished self-shooting producer/director, with broadcast credits for BBC2, BBC4, Paramount+, Channel 4, Discovery Asia and Film Division India.

For music videos, clients have included Decca Records, Universal Music Group, Bucks Music Group, Oriyon Music and more. And in the arts, he directed 6-part performance film series Silent Spaces co-commissioned by The British Museum, WeTransfer, Arts Council England and the SDA Charity.

Recognition includes IMDb’s New Filmmaker of the Year, Best Documentary at Cannes Short Film Festival and a Cannes Young Director Award nomination. His professional development has included BFI x BAFTA Crew 2021 and BAFTA Connect.

A note on 2026, AI, and keeping people at the centre

I believe AI could be a 100x catalyst for human potential, discovery and productivity. I'm excited by what it makes possible, and I want to help shape how we use it. Like any general-purpose technology, it demands transparency and ethical judgement, with human needs at the centre of the decisions we make. Too often, we've seen today's leaders fall short of this. We need to do better.

Practically, I've built custom MCP integrations, multiple internal vector databases and 50+ tools, skills, automations and workflows to support and accelerate research, production and post-production. I keep experimenting with Flux, InVideo, Moonvalley, Higgsfield, Runway, ElevenLabs and ComfyUI, alongside LoRA models and agents I've trained myself on our own, real production datasets. I'm in dialogue with production and research teams at frontier video generation labs. Much of this work is about giving myself and my collaborators more room to think and make.

I believe in being open about where AI is used. My north star is to use it intentionally, where it helps us make better work and we can explain those choices. The cheapest or easiest option isn't always a good enough reason. Its effects on jobs, inequality and our sense of purpose deserve the same attention as its creative possibilities; these are questions I think deeply about and speak about often.

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