Community Spotlight / South Asian Writer/Filmmaker Forges Her Own Path In America

South Asian Writer/Filmmaker Forges Her Own Path In America

Community Spotlight May 22, 2024

by Farah Khan | Editorial Director

Writer/Filmmaker Aayushi A. Shah realized the power of cinema as an art form while in high school in Mumbai, India. She decided then to dedicate her life to it, to mastering the art of filmmaking—a path which, although not easy, has led her to America.

City: New York City, USA (originally from Mumbai, India)

Website: https://filmfreeway.com/AAYUSHIASHAH

Recent Work: If one were to study Aayushi A. Shah’s work history, one doesn’t have to look past the last two years before one is impressed by the esteemed institutions, productions, and film/TV experts that pop up on there, for whom and/or with whom Aayushi has worked in the indispensable role of a filmmaker in America.

Aayushi’s recent production credits include Iffy, a short film that starred acclaimed author Emily Schultz and was shot by digital artist Brian Joseph Davis; Beautiful and Neat Room, a feature film for the prominent artist Maria Petschnig, starring Canadian actress Charlotte Aubin and Broadway actor Ari Brand; Freeze Tag, a short film that was selected to screen at a string of well-known comedy film festivals, including the Brent Kado-produced 2023 Los Angeles Comedy Film Festival where it won the award for Best Short Film; I’m Dead Right?, a short film starring House of Cards star Sakina Jaffrey; Sam, a short film co-produced by the studio Scheme Engine (which has produced music videos for the likes of Beyonce, Rihanna, Celine Dion etc.) and starring Daytime Emmy nominee Alice Kremelberg and Succession star Babak Tafti; Tasveer, a much publicized short film starring The Flash actress Kausar Mohammed; Willow and Wu, a short film that’s about to premiere in competition at the Canadian Screen Award-qualifying Brooklyn Film Festival; and more.

During the last two years, Aayushi has also worked for such established institutions as The Juilliard School, The Drama League, the highly recognizable beauty brand Eos, Unspeakable (one of the foremost YouTube channels today), etc.

Two films that Aayushi had worked on in 2021 have garnered significant recognition after being put out into the world since mid-2022: Here Love Lies, a feature film, won the award for Best Film By An African-born Director Living Abroad at the glamorous Africa Movie Academy Awards (the African equivalent of America’s Oscars) in 2022 and has been streaming worldwide on none other than Netflix since March, 2023; while Hidden, a short film, has made a splash at a great many long-running (and therefore classic) film festivals across America, namely the 2023 SOHO International Film Festival, the 2022 Big Apple Film Festival, the 2022 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, the 2022 Portland Film Festival, the 2022 Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival, the 2022 Seattle Queer Film Festival, and the 2022 New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival (aka NewFest), among others.

Then, there is Aayushi’s writing. Coverfly, the most comprehensive and vetted database of writers in Hollywood, has recently honored Aayushi’s latest screenplay The Past, Present and Future (a supernatural drama film) with its sought-after ranking, believing it to be in the top 44% of its more than 138,871 screenplays. Her two other screenplays The Rest is Silence (a portrait of grief) and Strange Things Will Happen (a quirky meditation on loneliness) have also caught the attention of film festivals from around the world since mid-2022: film-festival organizations in Iceland, Madrid, Jharkhand (India), Faro and Lisbon (Portugal), New York, Berlin, etc. have invited Aayushi to present her “excellent” (as one festival put it) screenplays there because, as another festival put it, they are “capable of standing out” among other works.

In a film industry that has only recently begun to fix its lack of diversity, there is a hunger right now for fresh perspectives from immigrants and people of color. That Aayushi’s unique South Asian perspective, her writing and her films, are out there and have been the focus of laudatory attention, that she has been working with and for heavy-hitting experts and productions/companies respectively in an unpredictable industry, portends an even brighter path ahead for her in America: Aayushi has more stories to tell and more films to work on.

Farah Khan | Editorial Director

Author

Farah Khan manages the editorial department at ANOKHI LIFE, overseeing content production, publishing, and the annual editorial calendar, while also supporting operations, projects, systems, events, and vendor coordination.

South Asian Writer/Filmmaker Forges Her Own Path In America

by Farah Khan | Editorial Director

Farah Khan | Editorial Director

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