Niyantha Shekar is an award-winning filmmaker based in Mumbai who's directed documentaries, ads and branded content for clients like Netflix India, Discovery, Red Bull, VICE, OnePlus, Google, Diageo, Vogue, Disney, Spotify India and more. His work's won a Webby, Kyoorius 'Blue Elephant' and CCSSA 'Best Unscripted Series' award and has been featured by Tribeca, National Geographic, MUBI, The Atlantic, The Telly Awards & Digiday.
He's passionate about narrative non-fiction, and recently completed a feature doc on Indian motorsports icon CS Santosh. Prior to that, he wrote and directed Dangals of Crime, a docuseries for Discovery & VICE on the dark side of Indian wrestling. He's also written and directed two award-winning docuseries for Red Bull – 'The Mind Behind' and 'This is My Hood' – and was the Content Director for Red Bull Spotlight, a multi-episode hip-hop show for MXPlayer. During the 2020 lockdown, he wrote and remotely directed 'Behind the Mask', a five-episode Discovery Plus doc-series for Vogue, GQ & Myntra featuring India's top fashion designers.
On the independent front, he's directed Raqs-e-Inquilab (Art in a Time of Conflict) which was featured by MUBI and The Atlantic Selects. His short doc, Baraf, on Mumbai's ice workers was selected by National Geographic for their Short Film Showcase and featured by Aeon.
He has a strong content & product background, having previously led efforts at Virtual Bharat, Microsoft, and Nazar Magazine, and he's written for publications like ESPNCricinfo and The Hindu.
You can reach out to him at niyantha@outlook.com.