About Arti
I am a media professional and a filmmaker with over twelve years of production experience in India and the U.S. With a Bachelor’s degree in English literature and a Master’s in Mass Communications, I worked as a freelancer for a while gathering some “to dos” and many “never to dos” in the media scene of New Delhi. I also worked as a radio presenter, copywriter, theatre writer/director and researcher for a book.
In 1996, I joined New Delhi Television (NDTV) producing Arts and Cinema related programming. Just when I started to miss fiction, In 1999 I was appointed casting director/ assistant director for BBC’s production of their series Yes Minister and Yes Prime-Minister in Hindi.
I moved to California, U.S.A in 2001 to pursue an M.F.A in cinema and ended up staying longer than I had planned after graduating. I worked as an independent filmmaker making documentaries, promotional videos and marketing films. My film Neither Milk Nor Yogurt won the Best Director (Documentary) award at San Francisco Women’s Film Festival,2005 and Best International Cinema award at Bethel Film Festival.
Voice of America, based out of Washington DC hired me as a one (wo)man team to report from the U.S west coast. I traveled up and down the coast meeting hundreds of people, sharing their stories and putting enough miles on my car to earn serious bragging rights.
In 2006, I joined ITVS (Independent Television Service) helping with the launch of their first ever international funding initiative for filmmakers. Once that was done, I stayed on to work on ITVS’s Emmy award winning series for PBS, Independent Lens.
I had always wanted to return to India and in 2008 decided that it was as good a time as any. There was the added excitement of launching, along with my partner, a brand new web-portal FriendsOfBooks.com, an online library and bookstore working towards making reading an exciting more accessible experience for readers all over India.
I am currently developing proposals for independently funded documentaries and writing a script for a feature film.