Manjari Makijany is an Indian Writer-Director based in Los Angeles. She was one of eight directors selected for the prestigious American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women (2016) and the inaugural Universal Pictures Directors Intensive (2017) and the Fox Filmmakers Lab (2017). She’s written and directed three critically acclaimed short films, I SEE YOU, THE CORNER TABLE and THE LAST MARBLE. Her films have won prestigious awards in India, USA, Europe and Australia and have played in festivals like Clermont Ferrand, Rochester, Asian American International Film Festival and at the American Pavilion in Cannes. She’s the second Indian woman to go through the prestigious AFI DWW, where her short, I SEE YOU, was awarded the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation Grant, Adrienne Shell Foundation Grant. It also won Best Film at 40th Asian American International Film Festival. She did the Professional Program in Screenwriting at UCLA where her feature script, CITY OF GOLD, was nominated for the Nate Wilson Award. She’s worked for incredible filmmakers like Christopher Nolan on Dunkirk, Patty Jenkins on Wonder Woman and Vishal Bhardwaj. Her credits as a 2nd-2nd Assistant Director include ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, ‘Mission Impossible 4’ and Bollywood features like ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’, ‘Wake Up Sid’ and ‘Gandhi of the Month’ starring Harvey Keitel. Her vision for storytelling and her diverse film experience, both in India and America, has served as a fertile ground to craft her unique voice as a filmmaker. Her debut feature is set to shoot in 2018 and is inspired by true events. It’s about a rural teenage girl who wins a national skateboarding championship and comes-of-age after India’s first rural skatepark is introduced by a foreigner.
Winning Project: I See You