Watch two shorts, 'Bedard' & 'Limper', the former directed by Guntaj himself, & the latter by Hassan Siraj. Guntaj stars in 'Limper' & co-produced it with Hassan. 'Bedard', beautifully shot by Bhavesh Chauhan grabbed awards at local Indian festivals as well including the International Shorts festival in Calcutta as well as the Goa International Short Film Festival. 'Limper', brought to life by Avi Ratnani, won Best Student film at the S&G film festival in Vancouver in 2022.
Guntaj Deep Singh is a self-taught visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker born and raised in Punjab, India, whose practice moves fluidly between the still and moving image, grounded throughout in a fusion of art and poetry — using the pursuit of image-making as a way of holding onto the pursuit of life itself. He moved to Vancouver in 2018, where his photographic and directorial work began to take shape in earnest, before returning to a life now split between Chandigarh and Vancouver.
Singh's first constructed photographic series, Openly, marked a defining turn in his practice: a body of work imagining intimate, tender moments in the lives of Indian queer folk, staged with the same care and observational patience he now brings to documentary subjects. Supported by a Canada Council for the Arts grant, Openly premiered at the 5X Arts Festival in 2022 to critical attention, and a photograph from the series was subsequently selected as one of only 52 works chosen from across the country for the Salt Spring National Art Prize Exhibit in October 2023 — placing his work in dialogue with some of Canada's most significant contemporary art practices. His photographic practice was further recognized as runner-up for the Amateur Erotic Photography TOTO BANANA grant in its Spring 2024 call, affirming a continued commitment to working at the intersection of intimacy, the body, and constructed image-making.
Alongside his photographic work, Singh has built a parallel and increasingly prominent career in film. His directorial debut short film, Bedard, completed an international festival run in 2023, earning a semi-finalist placement at the Madras Independent Film Festival and winning Second Best LGBTQ Short Film at the Indian International Short Film Festival that same year. His most recent film, AMAN, was selected for the ShortCuts program at the Toronto International Film Festival 2026, screening September 15 — a milestone that reflects the steady maturation of his directorial voice since Bedard. His work behind the camera also extends to music video direction, including Tabaah Hai for the artist Hakeem (2023) and When I Use My Voice by Anjalica Solomon, the latter supported by CreativeBC and the City of Vancouver. Earlier credits as an actor and co-producer include the short film Limper, winner of Best Student Film at Vancouver's S&G Film Festival in 2022.
Singh's practice has also found expression in public and civic art: in 2021, he painted The Golden Land, an 18-by-25-foot mural on Main Street commissioned through the Vancouver Mural Festival, and his work has appeared in exhibitions with Sikh Heritage BC, including True Home (2022) and Khazana (2023), alongside multiple presentations with the 5X Festival and a 2022 artist talk with the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver.
Across photography and film alike, Singh's work returns consistently to questions of the body, intimacy, and community within Punjabi and diasporic life — an inquiry he continues to extend, most recently turning his lens toward the specific, cumulative ways that sustained, skilled labour reshapes a person over time. He is currently developing his next film alongside new photographic work.
