When the apple fell on Newton’s head, he didn’t just eat it.
Kumar is an alum of Sarah Lawrence College and specializes in film directing and writing. Her debut film ‘Coffined At 15’ explores the issue of child marriage in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. It screened at the Oscar-qualifying Dances With Films festival and bagged a Special Jury Award at the 8th International Film Festival of Shimla. Her first feature screenplay “The Day Before Being Sold,” qualified as a quarterfinalist in the Academy’s Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship. She was also a semifinalist in ScreenCraft’s Virtual Pitch Competition. She is also a Let’sdoc Fellow. Currently, she is directing a feature documentary in Punjab, India that was selected as part of Film Bazaar’s Co-Production Market. She believes in cinema with purpose and happy endings, thereby picking topical and pressing issues with stories that don’t just inform, but help us heal.
In addition to filmmaking, Kumar has always had an affinity towards social justice and humanitarian projects. Her time working at U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s New York office gave her a fresh encounter with the current issues plaguing Americans today.
Instead, he let it inspire him to discover one of the world’s greatest theories. When the camera fell into Katyayani Kumar’s hands for the first time, she didn’t just point and shoot, but rather began turning it into a weapon of mass redemption. Kumar’s aim is to elevate the purpose of cinema within the next decade by turning it into a field that can solve society’s problems—the same way science, mathematics, and religion does. This is what her production company Shastra Productions is all about.
“As a female filmmaker who makes films on women-based issues, it seemed impossible to Kumar that anyone could let such a subject matter slip through the cracks.”
“As a filmmaker who practices democratic filmmaking, I try my best to cast those who have been real-life subjects of the stories I write.”
“Filmmaker Katyayani Kumar captures the fear, horror and pain the Taliban has caused to not just one, but several families all at once in only a few minutes.”
“‘Coffined at 15’ is an important spectacle that opens our eyes wide.”
DR. LAURA WILHELM, THE HOLLYWOOD TIMES
“Katyayani Kumar has one of the most original voices I have yet encountered in short films.”
LARRY NAMER, FOUNDER OF E! ENTERTAINMENT