Sam Dalrymple




SAM DALRYMPLE is a Delhi-raised Scottish historian and award-winning filmmaker. He graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar, and also studied at the University of Isfahan and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran. He has worked across South and Central Asia, including stints with Turquoise Mountain in Kabul, and with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Hunza and Lahore. 

In 2018, he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India. His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and received the inaugural XR History Award from the Körber-Stiftung Foundation. His animated series Lost Migrations sold out at the BFI the same year. Dastaan’s work has been exhibited at leading institutions including the Smithsonian, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Partition Museum, with support from the British Council, Australia Council for the Arts, and the Ford Foundation. 

Dalrymple’s writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Spectator, and his work has been featured in TIME, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He is a columnist for Architectural Digest, and in 2025, Travel & Leisure named him ‘Champion of the Travel Narrative’. He runs the history Substack @travelsofsamwise. 

His debut book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, will be published by William Collins in June 2025.

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Child of Empire



Sam Dalrymple was a Producer on Child of Empire, an animated virtual reality (VR) docu-drama experience which immerses viewers in one of the largest forced migrations in human history: the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan.

Winner,
XR History Award
Nominee, Webby Award 2021,
“Best VR Headset Experience”

Sundance 2022 (World Premiere)
Sheffield DocFest
Melbourne IFF
Atlanta Film Festival

Venice Gap Financing Market 2020


The film premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival as part of the New Frontier program, and opened to glowing reviews in The Economist and The Hindu.

The film takes audiences through a deeply personal perspective of this epic historical event. Two men from the Partition generation — Ishar Das Arora (voiced by Adil Hussain), an Indian Hindu who migrated from Pakistan to India, and Iqbal-ud-din Ahmed (voiced by Salman Shahid), a Pakistani Muslim who made the opposite journey — share childhood memories of their experiences while playing a board game. As the two men unpack their memories, audiences embody the experience of a 7-year-old child at key points in the migration. Child of Empire offers a powerful counter-narrative that lends a fresh perspective on the effects of forced migration on everyday individuals.

The score features an original rendition of Subh-e-Azaadi penned by the Pakistani revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, composed by Vasundhara Gupta and sung by Amira Gill. The percussion is rooted, earthy, warm and represents "Hindustan" culturally. Praveen Sparsh has masterfully arranged and played various percussion instruments, including tabla, ghatam, djembe, bells, etc., which provide a grounded, rooted, and dynamic groove to the entire track. Yuji Nakagawa, from Japan, has played the Sarangi. 

Production Company:
Dastaan Films Pvt Ltd/Anzu Films

Countries of Production: United Kingdom / India