Leena Pendharkhar

Leena Pendharkar is an award-winning writer and director. She premiered her sophomore feature film, 20 WEEKS, at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It is about a couple that must make some tough decisions when their baby is found to have a serious health complication ay twenty weeks in utero.

It was selected as one of the best indie films of 2017 by Film Threat, and was described as an “intimate, compassionate take on abortion” by the Los Angeles Times. It was released theatrically in 10 cities in April of 2018 and on Hulu and a number of other platforms.

Leena has also directed many short films including the recent AWAKEN, starring Parminder Nagra, which has played in almost twenty film festivals in the last year and won a Best Actress Award at the South African Independent Film Festival. She also directed DANDEKAR MAKES A SANDWICH, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of LA, and was selected as a Vimeo Staff pick. Her feature script, DAYS WITH DANDEKAR was in Tribeca All Access and the FIND Screenwriter’s Lab.

Leena was also recently in the Warner Brothers, CBS and NBC Diverse Directors programs, and has shadowed on several shows. She also adapted the Ursula K Le Guin novel, The Telling, and continues to develop television shows and features films. She is represented by Michael Kolody at the Kaplan-Stahler Agency, and Jen Au at Jen Au Management.