Puja Maewal is an Indian American writer-director from Texas. Growing up, she loved both Hollywood and Bollywood cinema, which has inspired her to create international stories from a unique perspective. She has worked in television in India as a Supervising Producer at BBC Worldwide and directed content for the United Nations that aired throughout Europe for millions of viewers. Her films have screened in over fifty film festivals and venues worldwide, including the National Gallery of Art, Hawaii International Film Festival, and Zanzibar International Film Festival.
Puja was selected as a Fulbright Scholar for filmmaking in Mumbai, where she wrote and directed her UCLA MFA thesis film, JAYA. JAYA was a Semifinalist in the Student Academy Awards and won the Jury Award at the Directors Guild of America Student Awards. Her feature screenplay adaptation was selected for the Writers Guild of America’s Feature Access program and Film Independent’s Screenwriting Lab and was a Semifinalist for the Academy Nicholl Fellowship. UK Film News called her work “explosive,” India Post described it as “beautiful,” and The Aerogram declared JAYA’s “brisk, charged narrative feels like an adventure.”
Puja directed Castor Oil through Film Independent’s Project Involve Fellowship, where she was mentored by Derek Cianfrance, and her short Sidekick was a Student BAFTA U.S. Finalist and premiered at Comic-Con. Her work has drawn praise from the Black List, CINE, and the Los Angeles Film Review. She has also earned awards at Rochester International Film Festival, Mexico International Film Festival, and CAAMFest. Most recently, her screenplay The Diplomat received recognition from Austin Film Festival’s Screenplay Competition, and her pilot script Accomplice was selected for the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors Script Development Program.
Puja is an alum of the DGA’s Asian American Mentorship Program and the WGA Foundation’s Writers’ Access Support Staff Training Program. The American Institute of Indian Studies also awarded her a Creative Arts Fellowship for filmmaking in Mumbai. She holds a B.A. in English from Yale University and an MFA in Film Directing from UCLA.