Sophiyaa Nayar
"A nationally rising director"
Windy City Times
"Superbly directed...I was knocked out, frankly"
Chicago Tribune
"A dynamic display of artistic excellence"
Rescripted
About
Sophiyaa Nayar is an award-winning South Asian filmmaker currently at NYU Graduate Film as an Ang Lee Scholar.
Her latest short film, Chhaya, screened in competition at Oscar-qualifying festivals including the Chicago International Film Festival, Tasveer, iSAFF, and Beyond Fest. She is a recipient of the 2026 NYWIFT Scholarship Award, the Black Family Prize at NYU, and a 3Arts Make a Wave Grant. Chhaya was acquired for streaming by OTV | Open Television.
She participated in Chicago International's CIX Lab, where she developed Mosque4Mosque, a feature by Omer Abbas Salem. Her feature screenplay adapted from Chhaya advanced to the second round of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, was a semifinalist for the 1497 Lab, and was selected for development through Sundance Collab under Jessica Sharzer.
Before transitioning to film, Sophiyaa developed new work with institutions including Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Center Theatre Group, The Shed, Writers Theatre, American Players Theatre, WP Theater, and the Smithsonian.
She is represented by Elinor Burns and Nina Amini at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.
Selected Work
Khel (8min, Hindi)
An innocent game of hide-and-seek between three siblings spirals into a dangerous struggle for dominance, in an abandoned factory in India.
[In Post-Production]
Rumi (6min, hindi)
A 13 year old girl goes to painful lengths to be taken seriously by her mother, sacrificing her innocence in the process.
[In Post-Production]
Chhaya (8min, english)
Somewhere between fantasy and paranoia, an absurd doctor’s appointment cracks open, unraveling the psyche of a survivor grappling with sexual assault.