Coming Soon // Field Producer
To learn a new juggling trick, you fail. A lot. In this comedic hybrid film, three performers travel to the 77th International Juggling Festival to practice old tricks with new friends. Along the way, they’ll take the lessons of failure & apply them to life. Can Sonal confront the mime who impregnated her? Will Cyril choose a passion for acting over success in juggling? Can Lucy find a way to make juggling sexy?
2023 // Producer
This impressionist hybrid documentary traces the oyster through its many life cycles in New York, once the world’s oyster capital. Now their specter haunts the city through queer characters embodying ancient myth, discovering the overlooked history and biology of the bivalve that built the city. As environmentalists restore them to the harbor, Holding Back The Tide looks to the oyster as a queer icon, entangled with nature, with much to teach about our continued survival.
Fiscal sponsor: The Gotham Film & Media Institute
Non-profit Partners: Waterfront Alliance & Billion Oyster Project
Finalists of Sundance's Documentary Edit and Story Lab
Support from IDA: International Documentary Association and DCTV
Film Festivals:
Special Preview at Mimesies Documentary Festival 2023
World Premiere at DOC NYC 2023
International Premiere at Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival
Feminist Border Arts Festival 2024
Rockaway Film Festival 2024
SF Urban Film Festival 2024
Finger Lakes Environmental Film Fest 2024
Monadock International Film Festival 2024
Reeling 2024 Film Festival
Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival 2024
Frameout Festival 2024
DC Environmental Film Festival 2025
Serious Play - Short
2023 // Producer
Chicago-based comedian and juggler Payel Gupta finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a one night stand with a mime. She has no time to panic – her hours are limited as she runs from massage work to fire juggling performances to stand-up gigs. When she’s confronted with this new discovery, she evaluates whether or not she has room in her life to be a mother and if she’d want to involve the father she’s never even heard speak. As she looks around the communities where she’s carved out a place, not an easy feat for an Indian-American woman from a traditional background, she wonders if they can provide the support she needs in return. Serious Play is a hybrid documentary that explores the communities of humor and play (with a fitting measure of comedy!) while navigating the fine line between sacrifice and surrender.
Film Festivals:
Premiered at Brooklyn Film Festival 2023
- Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short
Miami Film Festival 2024
New Orleans Film Festival 2023
SCAD Savannah Film Festival 2023
Cucalorus Film Festival 2023