Biography
Sejal Shah the filmmaker transitioned into cinema to focus on high impact storytelling. The former journalist turned filmmaker is highly regarded for her direction and producing some of the most acclaimed Indian cinema and OTT content. She did her directorial debut with Costao and has been a co-producer of the Netflix popular Series, Serious Men.
She founded the Bombay Fables Motion Pictures alongside the National Award-Winning Writer Bhavesh Mandalia. The Boutique production house was established with the goal of creating character driven films those that are unconventional and high-quality storytelling. Sejal Shah is a powerful creative executive in the Indian entertainment industry, with an experience in the mainstream journalism she reported for leading publications such as The Week, The Sunday Times (London).
Sejal was awarded the prestigious British Chevening Award for Outstanding Young Indian Journalist. She also received the Award of Excellence for her early documentary work which gained international acclaim. Driven by the desire to work towards creating focused stories, Sejal transitioned into films and soon established herself as the unconventional storyteller across all major international streaming platforms.
Her notable projects through Bombay Fables.
Sejal has served as the creative force and the producer behind several web series and films. Some of her most popular ones are Serious Men on Netflix, a Satirical drama starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui that had earned her a nomination at the International Emmy Awards and won the Filmfare Award for the Best Film.
She produced Asur 2 on Jio Cinema, a psychological crime drama thriller that shattered the viewership records upon its release. Delhi Crime Season 2 on Netflix was an Emmy winning true crime series featuring creative production inputs from Sejal Shah through her Bombay Fables Production house. Decoupled on Netflix was also a dark humor about relationships with humor starring R Madhavan and Surveen Chawla. Saare Jahaan se Accha again was a Netflix film critically acclaimed streaming project.
Under Sejal Shah’s leadership, Bombay Fables recently unveiled an ambitious slate of five new films spanning across with social comedy, thrillers, romance, action and drama. For the upcoming projects her production company has collaborated with top tier Indian directors including Vishal Furia, Rajesh Mapuskar, Shwetabh Varma and Ashish Aryan.
Her key work also included her directorial debut with Costao which was released on Zee5, a story based on real life, a raw atmospheric thriller starring Priya Bapat with Nawazuddin Siddiqui. The script was written by her creative partner Bhavesh Mandalia which is based on the real life to reel life. The story telling revolves around the 1990 gold smuggling and customs raids in Goa. The film was highly tense with its close to the authenticity.
Others
Her key Literary works also included, This Is One Way to Dance in 2020 is a debut collection of essays written over a period of time spanning across 20 years. Her collection named NPR Best Book of 2020 was featured by Good Morning America and was much appreciated by The New York Times. The book is a background about a trained dancer to discuss body dignity, invisible disability and her story revolved around her growing up as South Asian in a non-urban American space.
Her debut short story collection was How to Make Your Mother Cry which was fictions in 2024 published by West Virginia University Press which has blended well with cross genre.
A ground breaking widely read essays by her detailing her personal experiences is her collection called, Even If You Can’t See It.
Awards and Recognition
She is awarded as the Influential AAPI leader by Good Morning America and ABC News.
She is a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), Fellowship in Fiction.
She was awarded the prestigious literary residence at the Blue Mountain Centre,Kundiman and by the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop.
Her short literary stories have been published widely in The Guardian, Brevity Lit Hub, Guernica and the Kenyon Review.
