SHUCHI KOTHARI
Screenwriter | Producer | Director
Photo: Julie Zhu
Shuchi Kothari is a filmmaker, educator and industry advocate.
Her work has screened at more than a hundred international festivals including Venice, Cannes, Toronto and Telluride, and featured on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and MUBI.
In 2026 she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for her services to the screen industry.
Filmmaker
Shuchi is a writer, producer, script consultant and occasionally, a director.
Her films— Kāinga, Firaaq, Apron Strings, Seen, Coffee & Allah, Threads, and Shit One Carries — explore notions of home, belonging, power and resistance. They have received international honours, including NETPAC for Kāinga and the Filmfare Critics’ Award for Firaaq and DIFF’s Best Short Film (NRI) for Seen
Apart from her own projects, she has storylined for episodic series both in New Zealand and overseas. She also consults on story and script development across genres,including drama, comedy, animation and horror.
Shuchi has also contributed to health communication and digital storytelling with Māori and Pasifika communities in Aotearoa and beyond.
Advocate
Shuchi co-founded the Pan-Asian Screen Collective in 2018 to advocate for increased Pan-Asian representation on and behind the screen in Aotearoa New Zealand. As of 2026, the Collective has more than a thousand members across the country.
She has been invited to create and convene programmes such as Episode One, Short Cuts, Before Fade In and Seat at the Table to build capacity in the Pan Asian talent pool through experiential learning. She also mentors filmmakers through programmes offered by Script-to-Screen, Show Me Shorts, Day One, NZ On Air, and the NZ Film Commission.
For her decades-long career in filmmaking and mentoring upcoming filmmakers and championing their films, she received WIFT New Zealand’s Outstanding Contribution to the New Zealand Screen Industry Award in 2022, and the Show Me Shorts Spirit of Short Film Award in 2024. In 2026 she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for her services to the screen industry.
Educator
Shuchi is the director of the screen production programme at the University of Auckland, where she has taught screenwriting and creative producing since 1998.
In addition to her work as a screen practitioner, Shuchi produces academic publications. Her research focuses on screenplay studies, production studies and issues of representation, diversity and inclusion.
Together with Sarina Pearson, she is writing a book on forty years of Asian screen production in Aotearoa, funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand’s highly contested Marsden Fund. She has previously secured major research grants from the New Zealand Film Commission, New Zealand On Air and the Health Research Council.
recent Awards
2026 MNZM - Inducted into the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the screen industry.
2024 Received “Short Film Spirit Award” from Show Me Shorts International Film Festival, for “contribution of time, expertise and mauri to New Zealand short film makers over many years.”
2022 Awarded “Outstanding Contribution to the NZ Screen Industry” by WIFT, New Zealand for “long-term outstanding work, generous support for others, and commitment to the growth of the industry.”
2021 Selected screen-writer by The Blacklist, Los Angeles, USA (BLNZ Programme) for feature screenplay Navratri, New Zealand
2019 Marsden Fund Grant, Royal Society of New Zealand with Co-PI Sarina Pearson to study 40-years of Asian screen production in Aotearoa New Zealand.