JURY Team 2020

SANJAY SHAH

Sanjay Shah currently writes for Pixar. He was the Co-showrunner/Executive Producer of Apple’s animated musical Central Park. His writing credits include Fresh Off The Boat, King of the Hill, and South Park. He is a writing mentor for several programs, including the Sundance Institute’s Episodic Lab. Before entertainment, he worked in state politics and volunteered as a writing tutor at San Quentin Prison. He graduated from UC Berkeley where he boxed competitively and sucked at it.

Samata Narra

Samata Narra is senior vice president of Enterprise Inclusion, content strategy for WarnerMedia. She is responsible for building innovative tools and global systems across the company to help facilitate the advancement of equity and inclusion in our storytelling. Prior to joining WarnerMedia, she was senior vice President of Comedy Development and Current Programming for FOX where she developed and oversaw live action and animated comedy series. While there, she had the pleasure of working with the creative forces behind The Last Man on Earth, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, Bob’s Burgers, and the Mindy Project.

Samata also spent a part of her career in representation at Fineman Entertainment and The William Morris Agency. While at Fineman, she developed the series Lights Out for FX and produced the Emmy-nominated romantic comedy documentary, Meet the Patels. She is committed to education and creating equitable access across the entertainment industry, and is a mentor with Women in Film, as well as with Women in Entertainment. Her board work includes Film2Future, a non-profit providing equitable access to the entertainment industry for underrepresented LA youth, as well as Colour Entertainment and South Asian Women in
Entertainment (SAWIE).

Samata is a native of Pikeville, Kentucky and earned a bachelor’s degree in Business
Management and Marketing from the Boston University School of Management.

Janina Gavankar

Janina Gavankar is most known for her diverse acting career in television, film and major video games, such as The Morning Show, True Blood, The Leaugue and Star Wars: Battlefront II. In 2020, she was seen starring opposite Ben Affleck in The Way Back, and Netflix’s Space Force. Janina Gavankar and her creative partner Russo Schelling wrote and directed the elevated horror short film, Stucco, which currently has 31 million views across YouTube alone, and received a Special Jury Prize at SXSW 2020.