Director Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

Selected work Directed by Indrani, Produced by DXStudios

A reinversion of both an ancient Chinese legend, and Neil Gaiman's Blackbeard poem "The Hidden Chamber." A snake demoness, having transformed into a New Yorker to experience love, faces the patriarchy's judgement. She struggles with time, obsession, heteronormative gender-based power dynamics, transgender and trans-species metamorphosis, in search of her love. She achieves union, becoming that which she seeks, in an act of devouring - as an ouroboros.

"Whereas Lady White Snake has historically been seen as an evil demoness, Pal-Chaudhuri’s film modernizes the figure, using the myth to explore heteronormative power dynamics as well as transgender and trans-species metamorphosis. Returning to and reinventing mythology affords one the opportunity to, “counter-colonize the gaze… allowing one to engage with popular ideas by subverting, inverting, and otherwise messing with them” (Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri).

- Michael Harrington, Humanities Council, Princeton University.

A tribute to Alexander McQueen. Directed & Written by Indrani. With a poem by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Coraline, American Gods). Starring Daphne Guinness. Produced by GK Reid. Executive Produced by Daphne Guinness and Markus Klinko. Production design and costumes by GK Reid. Fashion by Alexander McQueen. Sponsored by MAC.

Huffington Post Cator Sparks: "A magical little film, Guinness shines in this epic tale of love, life and loss."

Tatler Hong Kong Arne Eggers: "A highly conceptualized interpretation... Daphne ignites a Gothic Chinese legend."

Los Angeles Independent Film Festival:

Best Picture Award
Best Production Design Award
Best Costume Design Award
Best Visual Effects Award

San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla Fashion Film Festival

Best Picture Award
Best Director Award
Best Costume Design Award
Best Visual Effects Award
RED Epic Camera Award

ASVOFF at Centre Pompidou, Paris:

Official Selection

London Fashion Film Festival:

Best Picture Award
Best Director Award
Best Design Award

Princeton Film Festival:

Best of Festival Award

Kolkata International Film Festival:

Official Selection

Harvard University - Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Pride & Progress Film Festival and Symposium:

Featured Screening and Keynote by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

University of Pennsylvania, Slought Foundation

Featured Screening and Presentation, as part of "Kim Kardashian is Dead! And Other Stories" by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri at the intersection of Social Justice and Human Rights

Princeton University, Organizing Stories

Featured Screening and Workshop / Keynote by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri. With the Humanities Council, Dean of the Faculty, the University Center for Human Values, the Department of African American Studies, and the Princeton African Humanities Colloquium.

Michigan State University

Featured Screening and Workshop / Keynote by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

Girl Epidemic

Directed by and Cinematography by Indrani. Produced by and Cinematography by GK Reid with Project Nanhi Kali and Strawberry Frog. Written by Justin Via.

CNN Freedom Project: Girl Epidemic Highlights Human Trafficking

CNN Freedom Project

Interview with Quincy Jones, Tony Schiena, journalist and editor Leif Coorlim.

Millions of girls are missing in Asia due to child labor, female infanticide, and sex trafficking.

Synopsis: Girls are being treated like they're an infectious disease. As a result, over a million disappear every year -- many falling victim to female infanticide, neglect and sex slavery. Fortunately there is a cure: Education.

Created in partnership with Anand Mahindra's Nanhi Kali Foundation and Strawberry Frog agency.

Huffington Post: "Indrani's creative lens, coupled with an impassioned perspective on gender realities in India...[are] powerful and provocative."

Forbes: "Riveting, shocking and touching... Indrani's direction is brilliant and provocative!"

CNN Expose Award: Best Picture Award

Tribeca Film Festival: Disruptive Innovation Award

National Screen Institute (Canada): Official Selection

National Organization of Women (NOW): Official Selection

Harvard University - Kennedy School Carr Center Pride & Progress Film Festival: Featured Screening and Keynote Speech by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

Princeton University, Creative Arts & Humanities Symposium: Featured Screening

Lambeth Palace, UK, Global Sustainability Network: Featured Screening

Chicago International Social Change Film Festival: Official Selection

PhotoSchweiz, Zurich Switzerland: Featured Screening

University of Pennsylvania, Slought Foundation: Featured Screening

Parsons School of Design, New School for Social Research NY: Featured Screening

American Society of Media Photographers "IdeaShare": Featured Screening

The Great Artist (Trailer)

The Great Artist Film - 15 Minute Version (password Indrani)

"Every star needs darkness to shine."

"For great art there must be suffering."

The Great Artist looks at the struggles of mental health through the lens of the art world.

Reflecting on the sacrifices made to create great art, while suffering and hiding mental illness, this film is created to destigmatize and drive conversations about mental health, inclusive of underserved LGBTQ+ and racially diverse communities, to help save lives.

"It is the climax that is truly brilliant -- one that earned the film a consideration for the Live Action Short Film shortlist for the 93rd Academy Awards...Are we all striving to achieve 'greatness' by holding our authentic self hostage? This is the haunting question that Pal-Chaudhuri leaves her viewers with." - Prerna Mittra, The Indian Express

Hollywood Reporter selected The Great Artist as one of the "Top 5" contenders for The Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film 2021."

Starring actor/writer Matthew Postlethwaite (Peaky Blinders), Emmy-nominated actress Rain Valdez, an original score by American Idol's Pia Toscano, and writer /producer Sunny Vaccher. Directed by Indrani.

With partner nonprofits: GLAAD, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, National Association of Mental Illnesses (NAMI), National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Movember, Kindred, Tethr, Tramuto Foundation, and Stand with Impact.

Awards: 36 wins, 13 nominations. Including:

Cannes Film Festival

American Pavilion Showcase Screening

New York International Film Awards:

Best Original Score Winner

Top Shorts Film Festival:

Best Narrative Film Winner, Best Actor Nomination, Best LGBTQ Winner, Best Original Song Winner

Los Angeles Film Awards:

Best Narrative Winner, Best Drama Winner, Best Actor Nomination, Best LGBTQ Film Nomination, Best Original Score Winner

Festigious International Film Festival:

Best Picture Winner, Best Actor Winner

Global Film Festival Awards:

Best Original Score Winner

Manchester International Film Festival:

Best International Short Nomination

Global Music Awards (GMA)

Outstanding Musical Achievement Female Vocalist Award

Hollywood Music in Media Awards (HMMA)

Outstanding Song Written for Visual Media (Film)

Be the Subject Not the Object

A multimedia campaign spotlighting women across industries for their unique character, intelligence, and success — rather than commonly objectified attributes. By showcasing everyday-yet-exceptional women in Hollywood-caliber documentaries, high-end photography, and fame-worthy global markets — we will affirm & inspire gender equality through women’s empowerment.

Starring Beatrice Fihn, Nobel Peace Prize winner for ICAN, who is abolishing nuclear weapons.

Produced by Chiara Tilesi, We Do it Together nonprofit, and GK Reid. Directed by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri.

"As a female filmmaker I have realized that there are numerous films about women but we didn't direct them. Women's stories have been portrayed featuring their bodies more than their achievements. We will be giving a real and significant voice to every woman of every ethnicity and age. We want these powerful women to be heard and seen for who they are and what they really represent."

- Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

"In the final Organizing Stories workshop of the academic year, multidisciplinary mythopoeic artist, anthropologist, and social justice advocate Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri led a spirited workshop on the “heteropatriarchal gaze.” Pal-Chaudhuri first explained how this normative gaze, despite its intangibility, shapes the world and its stories. Pal-Chaudhuri described, “Having colonized the globe, the settler-colonial straight male gaze dominates film and art, distorting humanity’s representation and self-reflection through a narrow lens.” As Pal-Chaudhuri noted, this gaze can shape and be deployed by anyone, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, people are impacted by and have the capacity to ascribe to heteropatriarchal norms, often without realizing it.

As an artist, Pal-Chaudhuri uses film and digital storytelling to counteract this totalizing gaze. For her, storytelling is a political act. Referencing neuroeconomist Paul Zak, she noted some of the neurological effects storytelling has on the brain, such as an increase in cortisol and oxytocin, actually make individuals more likely to take action. Pal-Chaudhuri specifically re-employs mythology.

"Digital storytelling is [a] way in which modes of seeing the world can be altered. Pal-Chaudhuri’s Organizing Stories workshop powerfully modeled how these shifts can occur every day and how we can inspire each other to make such shifts. Pal-Chaudhuri invited workshop participants to speculate on a series of startling statistics. After sharing their initial notions, Pal-Chaudhri revealed while only 13% of art works in major U.S. museums are by woman––and only 1% by woman of color––85% of nude portraits in major U.S. museums are of women. Pal-Chaudhuri used these statistics to preface her project “BE THE SUBJECT NOT THE OBJECT,” an initiative in which she collaborates with diverse female and non-binary subjects in order to reframe the narrative on woman. The project rewrites these statistics in featuring individuals for their talent rather than how their nudity conforms to the male gaze.

Pal-Chaudhuri used the workshop setting to ask participants who they thought ought to be a part of the project. Suddenly, the Zoom workshop format came alive, as a series of names began rushing through the event’s chat: Zanele Muholi, ORLAN, Margaret Mead, Greta Thunberg, Grace Roselli, Avery Williamson, Paula Kahumbu, Kara Walker, Maysa Daw, Juana Colon, Malalai Joya, Wangaari Mathai, Amanda Gorman, Zainab Salbi, Lady Gaga. This series of names, some perhaps more well-known than others, but all brilliant in their own right, showed how Pal-Chaudhuri’s project became accessible to the entire workshop community. The workshop not only encouraged individuals to consider the forces that shape the art they consume but also invited them to rely on those around them to encounter new artists, new perspectives, and new stories.

Pal-Chaudhuri’s workshop displayed the power of communal crowdsourcing, a tool through which individuals can reveal and upturn their own biases as well as counter-colonize the lens through which they see the world. As Organizing Stories co-director and co-founder Autumn Womack explained at the conclusion of the workshop, “In this past year, we’ve all been mobilizing forms of visual media… and I think you invited us all to think about how we see every day, and how that’s impacted and filtered and also how we can reorientate ourselves.” While the heteropatriarchal gaze may certainly feel totalizing, Pal-Chaudhuri’s workshop helped reveal some ways in which the material for reorienting reflection is available to us all."

- Michael Harrington, Humanities Council, Princeton University.

Manhatta Trailer

A playful feminist fantasy counter-colonizing the gaze and exploring intersectional objectification. A Black Manhattan man walks home alone, after seeking to fix his looks and his luck with women. Overwhelmed by their collective action objectifying him, he seeks divine intervention via his reflection in the ocean. With Harlem Renaissance poet Claude Mckay's "On Broadway."

International Fashion Film Festival Awards - 9 Nominations:

Best Picture
Best Director
Best Creative Concept
Best Art Direction

Best Editing
Best Music
Best Sound Design
Best Cinematography

Best Ensemble Cast

International Fashion Film Festival Awards

2 wins:

Best Cinematography Award

Best Ensemble Cast Award

ASVOFF Film Festival

Screening in Paris with Diane Pernet and Jury under Bruce Labruce

Till Human Voices Wake Us

Directed and Written by Indrani. Starring Lindsay Lohan. Produced by Rick Schwartz (Black Swan, Gangs of New York) Music by Grammy-winning Henri Scars Struck

In "Till Human Voices Wake Us," Selkies - Celtic mythical creatures that are seals in water and maidens on land - overcome gender norms and police brutality as they storm Manhattan to save the oceans.

Reversing poet T.S. Eliot's crisis of masculinity in "The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock," they remind us that we risk losing not only our lives as humans but the unfathomable mysteries and magic of the depths.

“Across Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri’s body of work, from film and photography to philanthropy and social activism, she uses art as a means of processing and reflecting upon questions of self and society, justice and hope, history and myth... Indrani finds a singular thread and invites viewers to feel tugged and sometimes even lashed at by the thing that would have been invisible to most other eyes... I love the resourcefulness at work in what Indrani does... Not just because what she creates is beautiful, but because in operating as it does, her work urges a viewer to acknowledge that a question like whether to protect the oceans, is one that can be approached not just with the intellect or even with the moral conscience, but also by calling upon unusual capacities, like passion, attraction, grief, and a real urge to be carried away, lost, overtaken, transformed. These are natural human feelings that live most of the time corralled into just one region of the self, but when they are invited in, they make a social or political question one that can be explored with the totality of oneself."

- Tracy K. Smith, Poet Laureate of the United States and Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts, at Princeton University Creative Arts and Humanities Symposium, October 2018

Los Angeles Independent Film Awards:

Best Director Award
Best Picture Nomination

New York Short Film Festival:

Best of New York Award

Centre Pompidou Paris, ASVOFF (curated by Jean Paul Gaultier):

Official Selection

London Fashion Film Festival:

Best Director Award

International Fashion Film Awards:

Best Picture Award

One Reeler Awards:

Best Supporting Actress Award

Los Angeles Short Film Festival:

Official Selection

Cineframe International Short Film Festival India:

Official Selection

Berlin Fashion Film Festival:

Official Selection

Princeton University Arts and Humanities Symposium:

Screening and Keynote Speech by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

United Nations World Environment Day

Film Screening

United Nations World Oceans Week

Film Screening and Keynote Speech by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

David Bowie: Valentine's Day

Directed by Indrani, Produced by GK Reid, Executive Produced by Markus Klinko

David Bowie explores the mind of a high school mass shooter. The video has inspired considerable debate: Do the shadows of his guitar look like an AK47? Does his pose mirror former NRA president Charlton Heston's "cold dead hands" salute? This was the last single released during his lifetime

Rolling Stone Eric Danton: "Radiates intensity."

NPR Robin Hilton: "Thrilling and intense."

Featured in the HBO/BBC Movie: The Last 5 Years

The Uncut Francis Whatley interviewed about The Last 5 Years, tells Michael Bonner:

"Indrani's video. It is compelling. I think she captured something about him – and the story around how she did it is quite interesting...She had to draw out of him that he was singing about a killer."

Screened at many institutions including Slought Foundation, University of Pennsylvania, and at the Lewis Center, Princeton University.

Digital Death/Buy Life

Directed and cinematography by Indrani

Video and stills campaign for families with HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Raised over a million dollars in under a week, for Keep a Child Alive.

Cannes Festival of Creativity

Won 2 Gold Lions

Lincoln Center screening

Princeton University "The Art of Social Justice" screening

Starring:

Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Alicia Keys, Janelle Monáe, Usher, Jayden and Willow Smith, Elijah Woods, Serena Williams, Jennifer Hudson, Katie Holmes, China Chow, Ryan Seacrest, Swizz Beatz, and many others.

Alecia Keys: New Day

Directed by Indrani

Produced by Good Day

"New Day" is a song by American recording artist Alicia Keys from her fifth studio album Girl on Fire. Produced by Swizz Beatz and Dr. Dre, the song showcases a musical departure from the previous singles by the singer, with a more upbeat sound led by drums and percussion, as opposed to her classical R&B sound.

On the song, Keys sings about "touching the sky and not letting chances go to waste". It received praise from music critics. Jason Lipshutz from Billboard gave a positive review of the song, stating "The track is her most upbeat lead single yet."[9] Becky Bain from Idolator agreed with Lipshutz, stating that it's "one of the most upbeat songs she’s ever released".[14] Keys expressed that for her, "a new day is the possibility to choose how to create the life of your dreams and letting no one to stop you."[11]

Mero Gaon: My Village

The inspiring story of the rebuilding of one village in Nepal, after the devastating 2015 Earthquake.

With Gyetrul Jingme Rinpoche and Ripa Ladrang Foundation.

Directed by Indrani

Cinematography and produced by GK Reid

The Rubin Museum of Art, New York

Crescendo:

Beats of the Beautiful Game

Music by Jetta produced by Pharrell Williams

Nonprofits: Yuwa, Shambali Trust, Shakti Empowerment Education

Directed, Cinematography, and Written by Indrani Produced by GK Reid

Jezebel editor-in-chief Julianne Escobedo Shepherd:

"Rad...feminist film director and fashion photographer Indrani Pal-Chaudhury captured a group of girls (and an elephant!) playing soccer in the streets of Jodhpur... Jubilant...[with] an underlying feminist message... Inspiring."

The Huffington Post Katherine Brooks, :

"A celebration of both athletics and education, in which the Yuwa women demonstrate the power of collective sports as a platform for social development... One of 11 films of the "Beats of the Beautiful Game" series by top directors including Spike Lee..."

Complex Magazine Kyle Hodge:

"A fun, colorful journey intertwining realism and fantasy through the streets of Rajasthan."

Girl Rising India (Woh Padhegi Woh Udegi) - Director

"One girl with courage is a revolution." Indrani directed Freida Pinto, Priyanka Chopra, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Sushmita Sen, Parineeti Chopra and Nandita Das for Girl Rising India -- Woh Padhegi Woh Udegi, screened on StarPlus, trended #1 on Twitter and became central to Prime Minister Modi's "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" ("Save Girl Child, Educate Girl Child") campaign.

Shinjini Das, Huffington Post:
"Director and photographer Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri, renowned for her iconic imagery and visionary storytelling...has showcased the inspirational stories...Indrani is internationally recognized for her extensive work on social causes and her video and stills campaigns."

Priyanka Dasgupta, Times of India