Smriti Kiran
- Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
Smriti Kiran is an independent creator, impact strategist and thought leader with over 27 years of experience in the Indian film industry. She is the founder of Polka Dots Lightbox, a company dedicated to developing and creatively steering narratives for film and series, building show formats for broadcast and digital, discovering and spotlighting talent, mapping impact and content strategy, putting together creative and organisational blueprints for cultural institutions, curating and creating film programmes and communities, and leading key conversations around content and trends in the industry. Currently, she is setting up the content studio for The Swaddle in India. A vocal gender equality champion, she is committed to strengthening Maitri: The Female First Collective which she created in partnership with Amazon Prime Video.
Smriti worked as the Artistic Director of the Mumbai Film Festival and Mumbai Academy Of Moving Image. Under her leadership the festival evolved into a cutting-edge entity, programming the best of global cinema, discovering new talent and fertilising the local cinematic landscape for visibility, growth and opportunities. She launched the prolific and one-of-a-kind Year-Round Programme at MAMI that slowly built a large, passionate, dedicated multi-city film community across India. Smriti conceptualised the unique Word-to-screen market that connected the Indian literary world with the Indian film industry. At MAMI she also introduced the industry programme that had top-of-the-line film professionals from around the globe participate in hyper-curated mentorship sessions with local talent. She is the creator and host of the clutter-breaking digital properties Dial M For Films, Writers' Block, Storytellers Are Us and How to Build A Woman. Smriti has served on multiple international film festival juries (Jerusalem International Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival, Munich International Film Festival), conducted and participated in global conversations on film, and curated for global platforms. She was one of the eight industry experts invited to decide on the Array Google feature film grant for the underrepresented in 2022. Passionate about the discourse on cinema, Smriti was the Creative Director on The Front Row and Star Verdict. Both shows brought discerning and nuanced conversations around cinema into the mainstream. In the spirit of buoying credible journalism in cinema she co-founded Film Companion in 2014. An avid believer in the power of narratives, she wrote the screenplay book of the record-breaking film 3 Idiots and produced the screenplay books of auteur extraordinaire Guru Dutt. Her extensive experience in television programming took shape at NDTV. She led special entertainment programming where she created customised entertainment shows, cultivating deep relationships for the network within the industry. The decade she spent at NDTV had her play diverse roles (producer, director, writer, correspondent) on iconic shows like Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai, Good Morning India, Night-out, Limelight, Cinema India, Newshour.
Smriti worked as the Artistic Director of the Mumbai Film Festival and Mumbai Academy Of Moving Image. Under her leadership the festival evolved into a cutting-edge entity, programming the best of global cinema, discovering new talent and fertilising the local cinematic landscape for visibility, growth and opportunities. She launched the prolific and one-of-a-kind Year-Round Programme at MAMI that slowly built a large, passionate, dedicated multi-city film community across India. Smriti conceptualised the unique Word-to-screen market that connected the Indian literary world with the Indian film industry. At MAMI she also introduced the industry programme that had top-of-the-line film professionals from around the globe participate in hyper-curated mentorship sessions with local talent. She is the creator and host of the clutter-breaking digital properties Dial M For Films, Writers' Block, Storytellers Are Us and How to Build A Woman. Smriti has served on multiple international film festival juries (Jerusalem International Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival, Munich International Film Festival), conducted and participated in global conversations on film, and curated for global platforms. She was one of the eight industry experts invited to decide on the Array Google feature film grant for the underrepresented in 2022. Passionate about the discourse on cinema, Smriti was the Creative Director on The Front Row and Star Verdict. Both shows brought discerning and nuanced conversations around cinema into the mainstream. In the spirit of buoying credible journalism in cinema she co-founded Film Companion in 2014. An avid believer in the power of narratives, she wrote the screenplay book of the record-breaking film 3 Idiots and produced the screenplay books of auteur extraordinaire Guru Dutt. Her extensive experience in television programming took shape at NDTV. She led special entertainment programming where she created customised entertainment shows, cultivating deep relationships for the network within the industry. The decade she spent at NDTV had her play diverse roles (producer, director, writer, correspondent) on iconic shows like Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai, Good Morning India, Night-out, Limelight, Cinema India, Newshour.