Amar Somaroo

Birthday: 1995-09-01
Birthplace: The Hague, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Gender: Male

Amar Somaroo (born September 1, 1995) is a Dutch film director, writer, and editor of South Asian descent. His work explores themes of diaspora identity, migration, existentialism, and cultural fragmentation through visually immersive and psychologically driven storytelling. He is best known for the composite drama Cyanide (2021), the autobiographical documentary The Place I Call Home (2022), and the television pilot Exodus (2025).

Born in The Hague to Indian-Surinamese parents, Somaroo developed a passion for storytelling during his early teens. In 2014, at the age of 18, he became one of the youngest published authors in Dutch history with the release of his debut fantasy novel The Redemption Tales: Tibet. After studying film directing and editing at Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam, he founded the production company Youth Novel Motions in 2017.

Somaroo began his filmmaking career with the short film Feathers (2015) and later directed A Woman in Kurdistan (2017), exploring women’s freedoms in Kurdistan from a unique perspective. Alongside narrative filmmaking, he has directed commercial and corporate films for clients including the Dutch Ministry of Defense and worked on productions across South Asia and the Middle East.

In 2022, The Place I Call Home was nominated for Best Documentary at the Septimius Awards, while both the documentary and Cyanide were acquired by Amazon Prime Video. In 2025, he developed and directed Exodus for Dutch public broadcasters NPO and VPRO, earning a nomination for Best Short Fiction at the Jaipur International Film Festival 2026.

Credits

Year Title
Abiogenesis
2025-11-09 Exodus
2022-12-17 The Place I Call Home
2021-05-20 Cyanide
2018-06-14 Anarkali
2017-09-16 A Woman in Kurdistan
2017-03-06 Visions: A tale about Schizophrenia
2016-09-01 21
2016-02-12 Unredeeemed
2015-04-05 Feathers