Shruti Parekh
Shruti Parekh is an award-winning filmmaker and artist who tells intimate and incisive stories of life on the margins of society. Her work spans fiction, documentary, journalism, animation, music videos, and photography.
Most recently, Shruti was selected as a grant winner for the CAPE USA and Janet Yang Productions’ Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge, an award that supports women and nonbinary Asian writer/directors to make a short film. She filmed her short “Zari” in Delhi, India as part of this cohort. Shruti’s previous narrative short film “Esperanza” has played in over fifteen film festivals around the world, winning Best Narrative Short at the Portland Film Festival, the Panavision Limelight Award for Best Student Short at the Ojai Film Festival, and Best Screenplay at Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival. Her first narrative short, “Blood Moon,” won the Audience Award at the South Asian Film Festival of America.
Previously, Shruti worked as a video journalist for Gizmodo Media Group and produced, shot, and edited social issue-focused digital news content that garnered millions of views, including the popular “Racist History” series. As a freelance video Producer-DP-Editor, Shruti has created media for clients such as Food & Wine Magazine, NYLON, WIRED and many nonprofit organizations. She was the assistant to acclaimed director Mira Nair on her 2013 film The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and has worked on three award-winning documentaries in post-production. Shruti has also directed over a dozen music videos which have been featured on platforms such as Remezcla, Jezebel, 2DopeBoyz and MTV2.
Shruti has a BA from Brown University and an MFA in Directing from UCLA, where she received the Jack Nicholson Distinguished Student Director Award and the Edie and Lew Wasserman Film Production Fellowship. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and is finishing her fourth short film, “Homebody.”