SMRITI MUNDHRA is an Academy AwardⓇ-,NAACP Image Award- and two-time Emmy AwardⓇ-nominated director/producer and one of DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 Filmmakers to Watch. Her latest film, St. Louis Superman, was nominated for a 2020 Academy Award in the short documentary category, won a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Short Documentary and is a finalist for a duPont Prize. It was also named one of the International Documentary Association’s Documentaries Of The Decade. Smriti also created and executive produced Indian Matchmaking, an eight-part Netflix original documentary series. Season 2 is currently streaming on the platform and season 3 arriving in early 2023.
She directed Shelter, a DGA Award-winning and NAACP Image Award-nominated documentary for HBO Max and Sesame Workshop, and two episodes of season 3 of the hit Netflix series Never Have I Ever, created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher. Her upcoming releases include Growing Up for Disney+ (executive produced by Brie Larson), a four-part docuseries on the history of Bollywood for Netflix and an Indian Matchmaking spin-off called Jewish Matchmaking for Netflix.
Her directorial debut, the feature documentary A Suitable Girl, world premiered in competition at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, where it was awarded the Albert Maysles Best Documentary Director prize. In recent years, Smriti has helmed ad campaigns for Google, the United Nations (starring Theo Germaine) and Bumble (starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas). She also executive produced the feature documentary 1232 KM, on the exodus of migrant workers from India’s major cities following the government’s Draconian coronavirus lockdown. Smriti recently served as consulting producer on HBO Max’s Eyes On the Prize: Hallowed Ground.
Smriti’s producing work in fiction includes Bomb the System, a 2004 Independent Spirit Award nominee for Best First Feature, and the SXSW Audience Award winning feature film Waterborne. She also co-produced Punching at the Sun, an official selection of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, as well as over one dozen award-winning short films, including the 2010 Sundance Film Festival official selection and Women In Film award winner “New Media.”
Smriti is the founder of Meralta Films, a Los Angeles and Mumbai-based production company focused on creating premium fiction and non-fiction content. She holds an MFA in Film from Columbia University and a BA from California State University, Northridge, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, screenwriter Christian Magalhães, their daughter Isabel and son Jag.
