Ms. Sur's independent creative works are usually bi-lingual films that are a cross-pollination of her Asian immigrant experience in the United States, and her Bengali roots in India.
HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO, September 05, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Roma Sur has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Ms. Sur is an established arts and entertainment professional and a screenwriting and film production faculty with the Media Film and Journalism department (MFJS) at University of Denver. At DU, Ms. Sur teaches Advanced Screenwriting, Film Criticism and Social Media Video Production classes. She designed and taught the Capstone Filmmaking for Clients class, where students wrote and produced professional marketing videos for clients, such as DU's Office of Internationalization, and Volunteers of Colorado. Additionally, she is scheduled to teach courses in Internationalization.
Before that, Ms. Sur taught screenwriting for thirteen years in the Film and Television program (FITV) of CU Denver. During her stint at CU Denver, she worked on five internationally recognized documentary films, the award-winning web series titled Womanhood, and wrote multiple award-winning short and feature scripts, recognized by Sundance, Stowe Story Labs, ScreenCraft, and India's NFDC Film Bazaar. She was also the recipient of the President's Diversity Award, 2020.
Ms. Sur was the Founder of FITV's first ever study abroad program to Mumbai, titled 'Bollywood Connections.' She conceptualized, designed and led the program over a two-year period. The outcome was a bi-lingual short film, titled Not Pictured, produced on location at Whistling Woods International, Mumbai. The film went on to win at the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival, India, in the year 2020, among several other global film festivals. Ms. Sur also co-curated the non-fiction writing program in FITV, in collaboration with her mentor, Craig Volk, Professor Emeritus. As a Senior Instructor, Ms. Sur served on the founding committee of Industry Pathways Apprenticeship class and co-designed the curriculum. This was her service to the university.
As an educator, Ms. Sur is a firm proponent of Internationalization in Higher Ed. She has led two in-person travel projects, to Delhi and Mumbai, while at CU Denver and a third virtually, with Satyajit Ray Film Institute, Kolkata. Each time, the outcome was a complete film shot on location, and made collaboratively with cohorts at CU Denver and at the partner university in India.
Ms. Sur's independent creative works are usually bi-lingual films that are a cross-pollination of her Asian immigrant experience in the United States, and her Bengali roots in India. One of her most notable films was a tribute to her mother, titled 'Maa', made over a year and a half through COVID, with crews in Denver, Kolkata and Niagara. This was FITV's first bilingual film in English and Bengali, which won Best Director and Best Film at film festivals. 'Maa' is a tribute to Ms. Sur's mother, Mrs. Uma Datta, who passed away in June 2023. This is a film made for posterity, and touches upon themes of mental health, loneliness, and deferred dreams.
Her film, 'Three Worlds One Stage,' is streaming on Amazon Prime and iTunes, and 'The Golden Hour' is streaming on NDTV in India. Her feature screenplay, 'The Rock Within', was a second rounder at the Sundance Asian Screenwriting Development Lab, and recognized by several other screenwriting contests like Stowe Story Labs, Film Bazaar, India, and ScreenCraft Funding Lab. Her adapted feature screenplay, 'Shillong Times', was a finalist at the Final Draft Fellowship, 2022. She is on the core committee of the 'Womanhood' Web Series, for which she wrote the pilot episode. The series was founded by her ex-colleague, Jessica McGaugh. It was screened at over fifty festivals and won an Honorable Mention at University Film and Video Association, 2023. Season two is a collaboration between University of Denver, San Diego State University, Montana State University and Vanderbilt University. It is an invitation to women in STEM to share their stories, which will be written at a writers' retreat in June 2024 and produced in 2025. It is heavily funded by the PROF grant at DU.
Ms. Sur is also in development for her new short film, "RED" – a commentary on gender-based violence in Asian cultures, from a comedic lens. She is the writer and director for the project.
Prior to teaching, Ms. Sur was a casting producer and wrote segments in the unscripted television industry for High Noon Entertainment and Citizen Pictures. Her unscripted television credits include Food Network, HGTV, Discovery and Cooking Channel.
As an Asian filmmaker and a longtime member of the Colorado community, Ms. Sur strongly believes in giving back. She sits on the programming committee of Colorado Dragon Film Festival and served on the scriptwriting contest judging committee of Denver Film Festival.
Ms. Sur received a bachelor's degree in mass media and journalism from Mount Carmel College in India and a Master of Arts in American and Commonwealth Literature from Bengaluru University in India. Upon her arrival in the U.S., she earned a Master of Arts in Film and Video Production, with high honors, from the University of Denver and was recognized as the Harold Mendelsohn Graduate Student of the Year.
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