Eli Meadow Ramraj

Eli Meadow Ramraj is a Canadian filmmaker and philosopher exploring consciousness, selfhood, and play through scholarship and cinema. Born and raised in Singapore, Eli has lived, studied, and worked in Vancouver Island, Toronto, Berlin, and London. By the age of 13, he had written and self-published four novels. At 18, Eli recieved a full-ride National Scholarship to the University of Toronto. He graduated with the Norman Jewison Fellowship in Film Studies and was selected for Canon Canada’s inaugural 12-month creative incubator, Canon Futures. He completed his MA in Directing in Berlin and is currently pursuing an MA in Philosophy at King's College London.

In September, Eli will be returning to the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Institute to pursue a Research-Creation PhD on how films can do philosophy, and has been selected as a Junior Fellow at Massey College. His work explores how cinema can evoke first-person “philosophical experiences" – in particular, self-transcendent states which foster compassion, reduce violence, and expand care toward the environment and other beings. In parallel, he is writing and directing on The Man Who Had No Head, a feature film about an actor who experiences ego death at an awards show.