Biography
Shilpa Mankikar is an Award-winning American filmmaker based in New York, Los Angeles, & Mumbai. Shilpa's work combines a commercial sensibility with provocative content. She is a Writer, Director, Producer, Editor, and Camera Person. She has been featured in the New York Times, NBC, and Times of India. She is a graduate of the MFA Film Program at Columbia in New York, and Oberlin College.
She was a Director at the 2015 ABC-Disney Talent Showcase. Her family comedy "Diwal'Oween" won 9 Awards from Bali to Baltimore. Awards include the Best Family Series at Baltimore (USA) New Media WebFest, the Audience Award, and Best Actor at Jersey City Halloween Popup Fest (USA) curated by Kevin Smith's producers, and 2nd Place web content at the New Delhi (India) Short Film Awards. It was nominated for Best Family Series and Best Diverse Content at Toronto Webfest (Canada), and Best Web Content at the Largo Awards (Switzerland).
She has directed YouTube stars including Nora Awkwafina and Lilly Superwoman Singh for Verizon Go90. She has produced content for GQ, Scion, and Xoom. As a Producer, Shilpa's narrative films have won the Planet Out 1st Prize awarded at Sundance, the National Board of Review Award, and Best of Fest at international festivals including Palm Springs, Switzerland, and Shanghai.
Shilpa writes about 2nd generation immigrants, women, rebellious youth, and historical epics. Her work has been featured in the Writers Guild of America - Independent Feature Project - South Asian Film Showcase. Her script "Convenience" was showcased in Anna Deavere Smith's Mattering Arts Forum about Black Lives Matter. Five of her scripts were finalists at the 2016, 2017, 2018, & 2019 Sundance Screenwriters Lab. As a documentary filmmaker, she has interviewed a broad range of influencers including former President Bill Clinton, actor Cameron Diaz, writer Maya Angelou, Fortune 100 CEO's, American veterans, and village street sweepers in India.
Her background is in Film Distribution. In 2001, she was a Co-founder of 3rd I, a national film exhibition network that hosts 106 South Asian diaspora filmmakers per year in the US. Shilpa formerly handled Programming and Outreach for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and Marketing for its affiliate CAAM (formerly NAATA) Distribution. After 9/11, she was able to get a national PBS broadcast of anti-hate crimes documentaries. Subjects included South Asians in New York, Sikhs in early 1900's Oregon, Japanese American Internment, and Filipino American veterans. This slate also received a grant for free nation-wide distribution at high schools and libraries.
She also managed Acquisitions and Distribution for Hypnotic, Universal Pictures' Short Film & New Media Division. This included acquiring films at festivals, packaging films for internet and cable, testing short films on early Palm Pilots at the 2000 Helsinki Trials, and developing business partnerships with Yahoo and other platforms. Shilpa is a contributor to indieWIRE. She makes music videos, branded content, feature films, and documentaries.
