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Jayakrishnan Subramanian was born in 1978 in the south Indian city of Cuddalore. After completing his bachelor's degree at Chennai College of Fine Arts (1999-2003), he studied graphic design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad from 2006 to 2009. During this time he met the German journalist and filmmaker Franziska Schönenberger. The two became a couple and have been realising joint film projects since.
After working as a designer for the Indian company Godrej Group in Mumbai from 2010 to 2012, Subramanian moved to Germany, where he completed his Master in Media Arts at the Bauhaus University Weimar in 2014. Together with Schönenberger he also made the documentary "Amma & Appa" (2014) about the pairs wedding plans involving their respective parents and how they had to overcome cultural differences. "Amma & Appa" premiered at the Berlinale 2014 and was released in German cinemas in autumn of the same year. In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Jay Subramanian remained active as a graphic designer. Among other things, he designed the posters for the films "Miss Else" (DE / AT / IN 2013), "Geschwister" (DE / AT 2016) and "Die Farbe der Sehnsucht" ("The Colour of Yearning", 2016).
As a co-director, he was also involved in Schönenberger's HFF graduation film: "Die Schatten der Wüste" ("Shadows of the Desert", 2018) takes the mysterious death of an Indian temporary worker (a relative of Subramanian) in Dubai as a starting point for an exploration of the scandalous situation of foreign temporary workers in the Arab world. The film premiered at the DOK.fest Munich in 2018 and was released in German cinemas in January 2019.