He was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka and moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1991. He writes and directs all of his movies. His diverse body of work is respected in Canada.[by whom?] His first short, A Few Good People, won the Best Short Film of the Year Award from the Independent Art Film Society in 2006. After several years of making short films, Sivam first achieved international recognition with his feature film debut 1999 in 2009, which won awards at film festivals internationally. Sivam was named as one of the Toronto's Most Influential Tamils by Tamil Culture[1] and recognized as one of the Ambassadors for Hope by the Charity Ball[2] for Hope in 2012. Sivam is considered[by whom?] to be one of the foremost filmmakers among the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.