Current Student Sushma Khadepaun Wins SFFILM's Spring 2020 Westridge Grant

Salt (Sabras), a feature film project written and to be directed by current student Sushma Khadepaun, has won a SFFILM's Spring 2020 Westridge Grant. She was selected as one of five winners out of a pool of ten finalists and took home a prize of $20.000. Last November, Khadepaun presented her script at the Film Bazaar co-production market in India. Salt was also a finalist at the Hamptons Screenwriting Lab.

Salt follows Anita, an enthusiast of American sitcoms in small-town India who orchestrates her own “arranged marriage” and moves to America in the hope of a more exciting and independent life. But Anita’s escape begins to feel like a trap when she finds herself completely dependent on her husband in suburban Texas. Anita must find a way to reconcile her expectations with her reality.

The SFFILM Westridge Grant is a fund that supports US-based, independent narrative feature films in the screenwriting phase. Grants are awarded twice annually to projects that address social issues and pressing questions of our time through creative and original storytelling. 

Film Bazaar is the annual mentorship and market event organized by the Indian government's National Film Development Corporation. The Bazaar's co-production market acts as a platform to connect the selected filmmakers with co-production partners and financial collaborators while offering networking opportunities with festival directors, programmers, sales agents and producers.

Born and raised in India, Khadepaun is a writer/director based in New York City. She ran her own production company for several years, making commissioned documentaries and commercials before switching to narrative fiction. Khadepaun was a participant of the International Co-Production Atélier at La Femis in Paris and a finalist of Ryan Murphy’s Half Directing Fellowship 2018. In 2017, she was a participant of “Pitch NY” organized by NBCUniversal and the Governor’s Office of Motional Picture & Television. The same year her short film, Foren, premiered at Palm Springs International ShortFest.