Rita Jhawar produces films, acts in them, and plays classical piano — sometimes all in the same year. The Indian actress, producer, and pianist has spent her career pushing toward independent and experimental cinema, the kind of work that rarely gets a wide release but tends to get remembered.
Building a Home for Independent Film
Jhawar co-founded NEZ Moving Pixels, an independent production company, and serves as Chairperson of the NEZ International Film Festival. Together, the two roles let her do something few in the industry manage: fund and program the kind of unconventional work she also chooses to act in. Filmmakers weighing how to get an independent project seen may find useful groundwork in this guide to distributing a film independently.
Notable Filmography
Jhawar has built much of her filmography alongside director Sudeep Ranjan Sarkar, frequently working as both actress and producer on the same project. Their collaborations span format and genre: Dreams and Rhapsody of God (2024), a philosophical silent film described as "a dream within a dream"; Notes to a Lover from Jenny Adam and Her Beautiful Family (2022), a black-and-white feature shot entirely on an iPhone, with Jhawar playing protagonist Jenny Adam; Death of Spring (2020), a dark supernatural fantasy set in France; and Glorious Dead (2019), another iPhone-shot experimental film examining human sin and ego.
Her producing career began with Umformung: The Transformation (2016), her debut feature as a producer, which contrasts the lives of a Buddhist monk and a construction worker. She has also produced Grasaan / L'Oscurità del Dio Sole, an Italian-Bengali collaboration centered on the life of a painter, and Mahakaal O Kaalkut, a Bengali film about karma in which Jhawar portrays a powerful industrialist confronting her fate.
Awards and Recognition
In January 2026, Jhawar received the Samaj Gaurav Award at the Maheshwari Global Convention in Jodhpur, presented in recognition of her work in film production and acting by the Rajasthan Governor. She has also been named Best Actress for her performance in Notes to a Lover from Jenny Adam and Her Beautiful Family, and Grasaan has received official selection and recognition at festivals including the Noida International Film Festival.
From Finance to Film
Before any of this, Jhawar trained as a Chartered Accountant and worked in finance and real estate. That background shows less in her on-screen work than in how she runs NEZ Moving Pixels, with the financial discipline that keeps small, independent productions alive. Filmmakers navigating that same balance between art and budget may find this guide to grants and funding for filmmakers a useful starting point, alongside an overview of what a film distributor actually does once a project is finished.
