Sarita Khurana is an award-winning director and producer.
Sarita Khurana’s feature film, A SUITABLE GIRL world premiered in the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival documentary competition section, where she won the Best New Documentary Director prize. A SUITABLE GIRL has screened internationally at festivals including Sheffield, Hot Docs, Mumbai Film Festival, and AFI Docs, and is distributed by Amazon (in the U.S.) and Netflix (worldwide). It was the basis and inspiration for the Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary series, INDIAN MATCHMAKING, for which she was a Consulting Producer.
Sarita was both a series producer and director of the short film, CROSSROADS (2022) for the Emmy-nominated series, ASIAN AMERICAN STORIES OF RESILIENCE AND BEYOND, a co-production of PBS/World Channel, A-Doc, and CAAM. The series also won the silver medal Anthem Award, for outstanding contribution in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her micro documentary, HOME, DELIVERED (2020) was commissioned by the Asian American Documentary Network as part of their Covid-19 storytelling series, and is part of NYU's archive documenting Covid-19 and Asian American communities.
Khurana’s short film WHAT REMAINS (2013), a collaboration with visual artist Chitra Ganesh, screened at festivals internationally and was featured in exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Göteborgs Konsthall in Sweden. Khurana’s documentary BANGLA EAST SIDE (2004), about Muslim youth in New York City just after 9-11, was awarded a NY Times production grant, and is distributed by Third World Newsreel.
Khurana holds a B.A. from Oberlin College, an Ed.M from Harvard University, and an M.F.A in Film Directing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her films have been supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, the International Documentary Association, NALIP-ARC Diverse Women in Film, Art in General, the National Film Development Corp of India, Women in Film-LA, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Asian Women's Giving Circle, the Center for Asian American Media, Asian American Documentary Network, PBS/World Channel, and Film Independent.
In 2008, Khurana co-founded Cine Qua Non Lab, an international development lab and residency for filmmakers, based in Mexico and the U.S. Recent projects include AND BREATHE NORMALLY, winner of the Sundance 2018 World Cinema Dramatic competition; MUSEO, winner of the 2018 Silver Bear Screenplay award at the Berlin FF; and LA JAULA DE ORO winner of the 2013 Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes. Sarita serves on CQNL's Board of Directors.
Sarita is currently working on her new feature film, THE LAST RESORT, and is also a Visiting Scholar/Artist at Concordia University's Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal, CA. She is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, A-Doc, New York Women in Film, and the International Documentary Association.
Sarita Khurana lives and works between Brooklyn, NY and Montreal, CA.