Rosie is a pioneer of the academic study of popular Indian cinema, establishing an international reputation following the publication of her first groundbreaking article on Hindi cinema in Screen in 1985. Since then she has written widely on Indian cinema, contributing to numerous books and journals. She is co-founder and co-editor of the recently launched international Sage journal BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, a forum for new research on the history and theory of South Asian film, screen-based arts and new media screen cultures.

Originally trained as a social anthropologist at the London School of Economics, Rosie did her first fieldwork in the Bombay film industry in the early 1980s. She has also worked as an independent documentary television producer, running her own company, Hindi Picture, in the 1980s and 1990s. Throughout the 1990s Rosie made programmes for UK’s Channel Four television on a range of subject matters, from health and mental health issues to South Asian politics, arts and culture. These include current affairs investigations for Dispatches, two series of the innovative discussion programme On the Other Hand with Shekhar Kapur, and documentaries on subjects ranging from self-harming in From Despair to Where, to the dark side of Bollywood stardom in To Hell and Back.

Rosie is Co-director of the India Media Centre.