# Sabrina Dhawan

Sabrina Dhawan is an Indian screenwriter and producer, born in England and raised in Delhi, India.
Dhawan is a Professor and the area head of screenwriting at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She has been commissioned to write for many large companies including Disney, HBO, ABC Family and 20th Century Fox. She has taught at filmmaking labs all over the world.
Dhawan is most well known for her writing credits on various feature-length films, as well as some producing and directing work on her own independent short films. She works a great deal within Indian and Bollywood cinema. Monsoon Wedding, a 2001 film directed by Mira Nair, is one of her earliest and most well known works, launching her screenwriting career.
Dhawan has a brief acting cameo in Monsoon Wedding as a wedding guest.

## Early life

Dhawan was born in England and raised in Delhi. Dhawan attended both the Convent of Jesus and Mary as well as Delhi Public School for her elementary education. She then went on to Hindu College to obtain her Bachelor of Arts and to Leicester University, U.K. for a Masters of Arts in Communications Research. Dhawan then moved to New York City, where she graduated from Columbia University's Graduate Film Program in 2001 with a Masters of Fine Arts in Film.
Her student short film, (Saanjh) As Night Falls, which she made during the last years of her MFA, has been successful since its release in 2000.

## Career

Graduating from Columbia in 2001, the same year as the release of Monsoon Wedding, Dhawan's career was almost immediate. In fact, Dhawan wrote the first draft of the screenplay while she was still in school - it only took her about a week. Fusing Hindi, Punjabi, and English, Dhawan wrote the multi-lingual script for Monsoon Wedding. The film was premiered in the Marché du Film section of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for various awards, including a Golden Globe.
After their pairing on Monsoon Wedding, Dhawan and Nair formed a brief partnership in which Dhawan worked as Nair's assistant at Columbia sometime in the early 2000s. She also wrote the segment "India" (directed by Nair) in 11'09"01 September 11, a series of short films for Canal Plus in 2002.
Dhawan's short film (Saanjh) As Night Falls was awarded the Best of the Festival at the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films. It also received the Audience Award at Angelus Awards; and was voted "Most Original Film," by New Line Cinema at the Polo Ralph Lauren New Works Festival in 2000.
In 2009, Dhawan acted as co-producer for the first three episodes of a TV Series titled Bollywood Hero.
In 2016, Dhawan co-wrote the film Rangoon, with Vishal Bharadwaj and Matthew Robbins.
Dhawan worked with Mira Nair to create a stage adaptation of Monsoon Wedding which ran at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California in 2017.

## Personal life

In 2006, Dhawan married Steve Cohen, who wrote the screenplay for The Bachelor (1999) starring Chris O'Donnell and Renée Zellweger. Cohen died on 29 September 2012.
As of 2016 Dhawan was living in New York City with their son, Kabir.

## Filmography

| Year | Film | Role | Genre |
| 2000 | (Saanjh) As Night Falls | Writer/Director | Fiction Short |
| 2001 | Monsoon Wedding | Writer | Fiction (Film) |
| 2002 | 11'09"01 September 11 ("India") | Writer | Fiction Short |
| 2003 | Cosmopolitan | Writer | Fiction (TV) |
| 2004 | Independent Lens | Writer (2 episodes) | TV documentary |
| 2009 | Kaminey | Writer | Fiction (Film) |
| 2010 | Ishqiya | Writer | Fiction (Film) |
| 2011 | Bollywood: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told | Writer | Documentary |
| 2013 | Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola | Script Consultant | Fiction |
| 2016 | Rangoon | Writer | Fiction (Film) |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Festival/Institution | Award | Film | Result |
| 2000 | Palm Spring International Festival of Short Films | Best of the Festival | (Saanjh) As Night Falls | Won |
| 2001 | Venice Film Festival | Golden Lion | Monsoon Wedding | Won |
| 2002 | Venice Film Festival | Best Short Film | 11'09"01 September 11 | Won |
| 2002 | Venice Film Festival | UNESCO Award | 11'09"01 September 11 | Won |
| 2002 | Zee Cine Awards | Special Award for International Cinema | Monsoon Wedding | Won |
| 2002 | Golden Globe | Best Foreign Language Film | Monsoon Wedding | Nominated |
| 2002 | BAFTA Awards | Best Film Not in the English Language | Monsoon Wedding | Nominated |
| 2002 | Awards Circuit Community Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Monsoon Wedding | Nominated |
| 2002 | British Independent Film Awards | Best Foreign Independent Film - Foreign Language | Monsoon Wedding | Won |
| 2003 | Golden Satellite Awards | Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language | Monsoon Wedding | Nominated |
| 2003 | César Awards (France) | Best European Union Film | 11'09"01 September 11 | Nominated |
| 2003 | National Board of Review (US) | Freedom of Expression Award | 11'09"01 September 11 | Won |
| 2004 | Director's View Film Festival | Feature Documentary | Independent Lens | Won |
| 2004 | San Diego Film Festival | Best Short Film | Independent Lens | Won |
| 2004 | Toronto ReelWorld Film Festival | Best International Short Film | Independent Lens | Won |
| 2010 | Filmfare Awards | Best Film | Kaminey | Nominated |
| 2010 | International Indian Film Academy Awards | Best Picture | Kaminey | Nominated |
| 2011 | International Indian Film Academy Awards | Best Screenplay | Ishqiya | Nominated |
| 2011 | International Indian Film Academy Awards | Best Dialogue | Ishqiya | Won |