As an Indian American girl growing up in small-town Colorado, writer-director Shilpa Sunthankar learned everything she knows from the movies: a steady diet of eighties Hollywood, world indie cinema in the nineties, and a hefty side of Bollywood. She’d like to say she never lets the truth get in the way of a good story, but actually she thinks the truth is the juiciest part. Armed with award winning screenplays, licensed short films, and a variety of industry work, she is poised to join any writer’s room conjuring the cross-cultural experience, and direct a broad range of narratives. The feature films Shilpa is currently developing include Generation Loss, a coming-of-age story about two Indian American sisters growing up in middle America in the 90's, which is inspired by events from her life; and Continental Divide, a dynamic outdoor thriller taking place on the U.S- Mexico border, for which she was awarded the SAGIndie Fellowship to attend the 2019 Stowe Story Lab.  Her feature script Seeta’s Demon was showcased as part of the C3 Conference at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Film Festival. Her newest short film, A Day In Color, which she made with the Montavilla Jazz Festival, screened at the Portland Film Festival, and was selected to play the Hollywood Theatre in the Portland International Airport in 2024. Her other short films, Working Lunch, The Company of Thieves, and Biography of an American Hostess, have won several awards including Best Director at the Los Angeles FirstGlance Film Festival, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s Project Grant, and have been licensed by the ShortsHD Channel, IndieFlix, and the Canadian Broadcast Corporation.   Shilpa lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and owns her own production company PushStart Productions. When she is not crafting award winning work, Shilpa is a powerhouse on her bicycle.