Deepak Rauniyar

Deepak Rauniyar is an award-winning filmmaker whose work explores deeply personal, humanistic stories and has been celebrated at major international festivals—including Venice, Berlin, and Toronto—and screened at institutions such as MoMA and Lincoln Center.

Rauniyar’s latest feature, Pooja, Sir (2024), premiered at Venice to critical acclaim, earning a Queer Lion Award nomination. Screen Daily hailed it as “in the tradition of great detective films… building to a resolution that does more than simply answer whodunit.”

His earlier film, White Sun (2016), also premiered at Venice, won the Interfilm Award, Best Film at Palm Springs and Singapore, and represented Nepal at the Oscars. The New York Times named him one of “9 New Directors to Watch,” and The Hollywood Reporter called it “a breath of fresh air from the top of the world.”

Rauniyar’s debut, Highway (2012), was the first Nepali film selected for a major international festival (Berlinale). His work has been supported by the Berlinale World Cinema Fund, Hubert Bals Fund, Sørfond, TorinoFilmLab, SFFILM, Jerome Foundation, and Tribeca Film Institute. He has served on juries for Locarno, Sydney, and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and is an alumnus of Cannes Cinéfondation, Berlinale Talents, and TIFF Filmmaker Lab.

At Boston University, Rauniyar teaches narrative directing and advanced production courses, mentoring students to discover their unique voice and craft films that resonate beyond the classroom.