Nainita Desai
Composer
Ivor Novello nominee and Royal Television Society award winning composer, Nainita Desai, is the World Soundtrack Awards 2021 winner for Discovery of the Year. She has brought her unique voice to the scores of hundreds of acclaimed films and is a double BIFA, Cinema Eye Honors nominee and BAFTA Breakthrough Brit.
Her recent projects include Oscar nominated and BAFTA and Cannes winning feature documentary For Sama, Sundance and BIFA winning feature The Reason I Jump, an immersive cinematic exploration of neurodiversity. Other recent credits include BBC dramas Unprecedented and Maryland, Bafta nominated American Murder [Netflix’s most watched documentary of 2020], ITV crime drama series The Tower (Mammoth Screen; Gemma Whelan), as well as Netflix hit 14 Peaks : Nothing Is Impossible (exec: Jimmy Chinn) and Kevin Macdonald’s The Story Of Us.
Upcoming drama series include BBC1 action thriller Crossfire (Dancing Ledge; Keeley Hawes), SKY drama Funny Girl (Rebel Park, Potboiler, Gemma Arterton), Body Parts (Tribeca 2022) and major feature documentaries for John Battsek / Ventureland, Misfits Ent, amongst landmark series Earthsounds for Apple TV+, Predators for Sky/Netflix plus video games for Electronic Arts and Interactive film-game Immortality for release summer 2022.
Nainita moves seamlessly between working with orchestras to song writing. With her musical foundations rooted in world music, she composes using her collection of custom-made instruments, electronics and found sound. This innate musical ability, coupled with a background in sound design and technical innovation, has fuelled her powerful and emotive scores. Her original approach to composition involves deeply researched collaborations to find those voices that are not usually heard, creating sounds that are truly unique, and ensuring that she is one of the most sought-after composers for both scripted and non-scripted.
Following a degree in Maths and studying sound for film at the NFTS in the UK, Nainita began her career as a sound designer on feature films for directors including Werner Herzog and Bertolucci, as well as assistant music engineering for Peter Gabriel.