Vaishali Sinha

Vaishali Sinha is a filmmaker and director of Indian origin. She is from Mumbai, Maharashtra. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Physics from St. Xavier's in Mumbai. She has also studied a diploma in Film Production from the New School University (NY). While at New York Click to look into! >> Read More... School University she made a film for her thesis - Choose Life? which was highly appreciated. She is the director and producer of the award-winning documentary, ASK THE SEXPERT, which sheds light on the popularity of a 93-year-old sex advice columnist despite the taboo surrounding sex education in many Indian schools. The film was screened at the Hot Docs International Film Festival in 2017 and has since then been critically acclaimed.

It has won several awards including the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the New Orleans Film Festival and a nomination for a Grierson Award in the Best Entertaining Film category. It has also been screened at over 40 prestigious film festivals worldwide, including IDFA Amsterdam, and is available on Netflix India as a top pick. In addition to her acclaimed work on ASK THE SEXPERT, Vaishali also co-directed and produced MADE IN INDIA, a documentary that explores the phenomenon of outsourcing surrogate mothers to India. The film was screened at the Hot Docs Film Festival and also aired on PBS in 2012.

The film has been nominated for the Ridenhour Prize for excellence in truth-telling. It is being studied as a case study at Harvard Business School for their ethics class. Vaishali's films have been supported by various organizations, including National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), The Fledgling Fund, MacArthur Foundation, ITVS, Playboy Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Firelight Media, NYSCA, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Center for Asian American Media, Nextpix, Catapult Fund, Economist Magazine, Mozilla, and Hot Docs Forum, among others. Apart from her work as a filmmaker, Vaishali is also a Bellagio Center Residency Program Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation. She is the Creative Advisor to Hidden Pockets Collective, a Bangalore-based group that uses art, music, and pop culture to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Vaishali has collaborated with notable filmmakers in the past, including Kiran and Abaan Deohans (Candid Creations, Mumbai), Bishakha Datta (Point of View, Mumbai), Mira Nair Mira Nair, a veteran Filmmaker, based in New York >> Read More... (Mirabai Films, NY), and Richard Wormser (Videoline Productions, NY). Currently she resides in Brooklyn, New York with her husband Fred Lassen, who is a Music Supervisor, and their son Luca. Vaishali has also been actively involved in the film industry as a juror, mentor, and programming committee member for various festivals and organizations, including the 38th IDA Awards, Fayetville Film Festival, Video Consortium Sony Mentorship Program, Bitchitra Collective Artist Sustenance Grant, Firelight Media DocLab, Majority, Brooklyn Film Festival, and the New Jersey Independent South Asian Cinefest.