New York, NY, USA
$300 - $600 / Day
Award-winning writer and filmmaker based in NYC. I work across narrative and doc. I'm most excited by story research and development, screenwriting, directing, and community building. Storytelling is my life. B.A. from Columbia University and a PhD in English Literature from Brown University. I have written for Huffington Post, n+1, Guernica, and other publications. In 2009 I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for Best American Essay. I'm currently an MFA candidate in the Graduate Film program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. I worked in publishing and academia before turning to filmmaking full-time. In turn, I have a keen editorial eye and teaching experience at the undergraduate level. In the last few years I've gained industry experience as an Acquisitions intern for Gunpowder & Sky; an Archival AP and Research Assistant for the Netflix doc-series "Bobby Kennedy For President"; script reader for the NYU Production Lab; Production Coordinator on the feature film "Soulmates" co-produced by Mandalay and Argent Pictures; Producer of the "Brown Power" music video (2020) by Zeshan B, featuring cameos by Hasan Minhaj, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and others. My series THE ACADEMY was a finalist for the 2016 Sundance New Voices Lab, and my short HASIM OCTOBER was shortlisted for a 2017 Lexus Short Films award. The film also screened at the Indie Street Film Festival, Chicago South Asian Film Festival, New Cinema Club, and premiered on NoBudge in 2019. I also produced IF THERE IS LIGHT, a short documentary about a family living in a shelter in NYC. The film was supported by Queen Latifah’s inaugural Queen Collective grant, in association with Tribeca Studios, and premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. My short script FOREVER TONIGHT won the 2019 BlueCat Screenplay Competition and was also a finalist for the Showtime® Tony Cox Screenplay Competition. My next short, WIRE & CLOTH was the recipient of a 2019 Alfred P. Sloan production award and is currently in preproduction. I was also selected to participate in the 2020 Cine Qua Non development lab with my feature, SUNDARBANS, a magic realist eco-thriller about a rapidly sinking paradise.
Produced for New York University
Fourteen year-old Janiyah wrestles with her life in New York as her mom tries to move her family out of the shelter system. From Queen Latifah, Tribeca, and P&G, the Queen Collective is a program accelerating gender and racial equality behind the camera. TVPGDocumentaries, Black StoriesMovie (2019)
Personal essay about how there is something uniquely quarantine-ready about my upbringing that I finally have the chance to reckon with.
Zeshan B music video released February 2020. Covered in The Fader, CNN International. Featuring cameos by Hasan Minhaj, Ilhan Omar, Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr, and others
Production Support
Miscellaneous