Sophiyaa Nayar is a South Asian filmmaker currently at NYU Tisch's Grad Film Program as a TSOA Scholar. She creates genre-bending work that challenges existing narratives surrounding (im)migration.

 

Her recent short film, "Chhaya" was selected to be in competition at several Oscar Qualifying festivals including Chicago International. She is now a part of Chicago International's CIX Lab, developing and pitching "Mosque4Mosque," a feature written by Omer Abbas Salem. Her own feature script for, "Chhaya" made it into the second round of Sundance's Feature Development Track and was a Semi-Finalist for the 1497 Lab. It was also selected to be workshopped under Jessica Sharzer ("Dirty Dancing") through Sundance Collab. She is a member of the WP Lab 2020-22, 3Arts Make a Wave Grantee, a Definition Theatre ensemble member, member of Director's Lab Chicago 2017 and a resident in Milwaukee Rep’s 2017/18 season.

 

AD credits include Search for Signs... with Cecily Strong (Leigh Silverman) and Nollywood Dreams by Jocelyn Bioh (Saheem Ali) with Nana Mensah . She was part of the SDC Foundation’s Observership Class, through which she worked on Soft Power by Jeanine Tesori and David Henry Hwang at The Public. And King James by Rajiv Joseph (Kenny Leon) with Chris Parfetti (from "Abbot Elementary") and Glenn Davis. 

 

She has developed work with The Smithsonian, Lincoln Center, The Public, WP Theatre, The Goodman, Steppenwolf, Center Theatre Group, The Shed, American Players Theatre, Writers Theatre, and Manhattan Theatre Club among others.