Sneha Khanwalkar is a composer of film scores and music director from India. After making her debut with the war drama The Hope in 2004, she worked on several films before her breakthrough on Go (2007) and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008), which won three of India’s annual Filmfare Awards. Khanwalkar later made history as just the second woman ever nominated for Best Music Director at the Filmfare Awards for her work on the two-part epic Gangs of Wasseypur (2012). Hers was the first nomination for a female composer in nearly three decades following Usha Khanna in 1983. Gangs of Wasseypur won the 2012 APSA Jury Grand Prize for director Anurag Kashyap.

She has worked on additional popular films including Khoobsurat (2014), Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015), and Manto (2018), which has screened this past year at Cannes, Toronto and Sydney film festivals. She has also hosted the MTV series Sound Trippin’ in which she travelled to places like Punjab and Yellapur, collecting ambient sounds and vocals by local musicians to create an original composition that resonates with the location of its origins.

The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.

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