A year after founding Women in Film India, Guneet Monga Kapoor – whose “The Elephant Whisperers” took the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the 2023 Oscars – was at Cannes with four scholarship recipients in tow and a producing slate that signals a deliberate move into genre cinema, women-led franchises and, eventually, gaming.
Monga Kapoor brought two scholars to the Cannes Film Market‘s Producers Network and two to its Impact Lab, through a formal tie-up with the market. The initiative, backed at Cannes this year by Jio Studios and clothing brand Rareism – part of the House of Rare group – received more than 200 applications for the four places. Women in Film India, launched during Cannes 2025, has reached 3,500 members in its first twelve months.
“We are trying to build skill development enhancement and a bridge into other markets,” Monga Kapoor tells Variety. The organization runs monthly workshops in partnership with So House, alongside resilience workshops led by life coach Chetna Chakravarthy, held online over six-week cycles in groups of 20 to 30 participants per batch. Six projects and six women were taken to the Toronto market last year; one, Katyayani Kumar’s “Sons of the River,” has since been selected by Film Independent, Monga Kapoor says, while Paromita Dhar’s “Ulta” placed second in the Co-Production Features competition at the WAVES Film Bazaar in Goa. Monga Kapoor says she hopes to develop a script lab and a producers breakfast series in India, funding and staffing permitting.
