Born and brought up in New Delhi, India, Naina Sen is an award winning documentary filmmaker, creative producer and video installation/projection artist specialising in cross-cultural storytelling. Completing her Masters in Media Studies in 2003, she has lived and worked in Australia ever since. Naina yarns with Gman. Focusing on culture, music and the arts, Naina's work has been exhibited in various forms from television broadcasts (ABC, NITV,SBS,PBS) exhibition (ACMI, Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne Museum) video installation and online. Most of her work in the last 10 years has been in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and more recently Indonesia, East Timor and India.
From 2008-2011 Naina created and operated the visual projections that accompanied award winning Indigenous musician Dr. G Yunupingu’s live show, touring with him nationally and internationally, whilst directing and filming an ongoing documentary on his life. In 2010 Naina directed and produced Stories Through Song a half hour documentary for PBS combining rare concert footage of Dr. G with behind the scenes footage of the reclusive singer and interviews with his family. She was also the Associate Producer and cinematographer for ABC’s Australian Story profile on Gurrumul, You’re the voice.
In 2012 Naina produced a multi screen video installation ‘Wanarn is our home’ as part of the 'Land and Body' Indigenous art exhibition curated by Warburton Arts Project that toured across14 museums in China in 2013. The exhibition won the prestigious Arts in Asia Award, Indigenous category in 2013. In 2013 Naina also produced 8 installation films for the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum’s internationally award winning First Peoples permanent exhibition, including ‘The story of Louisa Briggs’ on Boon Wurrung elder and custodian Arweet Carolyn Briggs’s great grandmother.
In 2014-2015 Naina co-wrote and edited Bulunu Milkarri, part of the Songlines To Screen initiative, directed by Sylvia Nulpinditj and produced by ARDS. The film premiered at the Sydney International Film Festival 2015 and won Best Language production at the ImagiNative Film festival, Toronto 2015.
Naina has created a number of award winning filmclips for a range of artists including Gurrumul, East Journey, Ego Lemos, Ali Mills. Her latest, Bright Lights Big City for East Journey, won Best Film Clip at the 2014 National Indigenous Music Awards. In 2017 Naina produced and directed her debut feature documentary, The Song Keepers, on the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival to critical acclaim and had a 12 week theatrical released across Australia in 2018 , making it one of the most successful Australian documentaries in recent years. The Song Keepers was nominated for best feature documentary by Screen Producers Australia (SPA) Awards 2017, Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards 2018, the audience award for best documentary at MIFF 2017 and for the prestigious Walkley Documentary award for excellence in journalism.